Rania Kurdi

A veritable sensation in the Middle East, Rania Kurdi is a Jordanian-British actress, singer and television presenter who has had a richly storied career in the Middle East for over two decades in a wide variety of cultural media. She was elevated to the status of a household name in the Arab world after co-hosting Fremantle’s SuperStar (the Arabic adaptation of the popular, long-running British format Pop Idol).

Her appearance on SuperStar opened up a world of opportunities to her in the Middle East, landing her the lead role in the Egyptian romantic comedy The Seventh Sense (2005) with Ahmad El-Fishawi, a big name in Egyptian entertainment. Around the same time she was also working steadily on her singing career, releasing her first album with EMI Arabia, and her second, “Olli Leh”, with New Century Music. Her sophomore album featured the song “Shayef Nafsak”, which topped the Arab pop music charts and became an overwhelmingly popular anthem, strengthening Kurdi’s hold on the Arab entertainment circuit.

After a career hiatus in which Kurdi redirected her focus towards starting a family, she returned in 2013 – to the delight of Arab fans – as the executive producer and writer of her very own comedy sketch show The Rania Show which ran for two seasons on Jordan’s popular network Roya TV. Her work on this show and confident grasp of comedy resulted in several critics referring to her as the “Arab Tracey Ullman”.

Kurdi is now based in England and revels in being a bi-cultural, bilingual performer. She is currently writing a sitcom that sits at the intersection of both Western and Eastern cultures. She spends her time outside entertainment as a motivational speaker and life coach empowering women of all nationalities, and has been an ambassador for the Children of War Foundation since 2013.