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Name: Despina Malea

Birth Date: 07/22/1969

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www.despinavandi.com

Despina Vandi (Greek: Δέσποινα Βανδή) (born Despina Malea, 22 July 1969, near Stuttgart-Tübingen, West Germany, Germany) is a Greek singer famous mainly in Greece and Cyprus, with international success too.
Although born in Germany, Vandi's family was from Kavala, Greece, where she and her family moved when she was six years old. As a result, she did not learn German, unlike the rest of her family. She has one older brother and an older sister. Living in a lower middle-class family her dream was to become either an actress or a singer but she always knew that she should have something more solid as a background so she went on to study psychology, philosophy, and education at the University of Thessaloniki. At the start of her singing, Despina changed her last name to Vandi, to hide that she was singing from her parents.

Despina Vandi is married to Demis Nikolaidis, ex-international soccer player and former President of AEK soccer club. She has a five year old daughter named Melina and a son named Giorgos born in August 2007.

A Discovery Channel documentary entitled Europe's Richest People estimated Vandi and Nikolaidis' combined fortune to be in excess of 10 million euros in 2003.

On August 18, 2008, Vandi was in a car accident on Kifissias Avenue in Kifissia, Greece. The car she was in, driven by her chauffeur, slipped on an oil slick that leaked from a tanker truck causing the car to crash into the truck ahead of her. After drivers helped pull her out of the vehicle, she was transported by ambulance to the general hospital in Athens and then moved to a private clinic. Vandi only abstained a cut to her head and got stitches. After the accident, Greek media called it a "miracle" that Vandi only had minor injuries as her Porsche Cayenne was totaled beyond recognition. Vandi faced criticism after stating that she would rather have died than be left paralyzed and was asked to give a public apology but refused.

Sources: Wikipedia.

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