Leona Lewis made OBE in New Year Honours list for services to charity and music

Leona Lewis has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours list, honoured for services to music and to charity.

The British singer-songwriter won the third series of The X Factor in 2006 and went on to achieve success with singles including Bleeding Love, Run and Better In Time.

Lewis grew up in Islington and, after being recognised for her vocal ability on talent contest The X Factor, became a seven-time Brit award nominee and was nominated three times for a Grammy award.

The 38-year-old sang the song I See You from James Cameron’s hit film Avatar in 2009, and in 2016 she made her Broadway debut replacing Nicole Scherzinger as Grizabella in the revival of Lord Lloyd-Webber’s musical Cats.

Her first regular TV role came in 2019 starring in The Oath from executive producer 5O Cent and she was also a judge on Queen Of The Universe in 2021.

Alongside her music, TV and acting career, Lewis is a humanitarian and animal rights activist having worked with a number of organisations including The Prince’s Trust, Teenage Cancer Trust and WWF.

Lewis and her husband, German-born creative director Dennis Jauch, opened a coffee shop with sustainability at its heart in Los Angeles, planting a tree for every cup they sell having partnered with the National Forest Association.

The couple got married in July 2019 at Sting’s estate in Tuscany, Italy, in front of 180 friends and family members, including Sugababes singer Keisha Buchanan and The Voice winner Jermain Jackman, who sang at the ceremony.

Another project Lewis also recently worked on was voicing a short animation for the Ecoflix Foundation UK, which is an adaptation of the children’s book It’s Up To Us: A Children’s Terra Carta For Nature, People And Planet, originally written by Christopher Lloyd.

Available on the Ecoflix channel, the animation explores the relationship between people, nature and the planet, and features a foreword from the King.