Zerrin Özer

Zerrin Özer — Biography

Zerrin Özer was born in Ankara on 4 November 1957, the younger sister of noted 1970s performer Tülay Özer. She broke into music by winning a TRT talent contest in 1975, released her first record on Kent Plak in 1976, and performed jazz and dance music with the İstanbul Gelişim Orchestra before her 1979 breakthrough with the Orhan Gencebay-penned song Gönül, which brought her a Golden Record award the following year. In 1982 she gave a series of concerts titled Binbir Gece in Paris, followed a year later by a recital at the Olympia. Dubbed Turkey's Janis Joplin by fans, she reached wide audiences with songs such as Son Mektup, Dayanamıyorum, Dünya Tatlısı, Paşa Gönlüm, Kıyamam and Ah İstanbul, and won a Best Album award in 1990 for İşte Ben.

During an operation on her leg a scalpel fragment was left inside her body, and a second surgery to remove it damaged her spinal cord; she used a wheelchair for a year and a half before regaining the ability to walk through treatment, and in 2006 she published her autobiography, Bir Sarışın Küçük Kız. She married Murat Akıncı in June 2019 but filed for divorce soon after, following allegations that he was involved in fraud and had ties to cult leader Adnan Oktar.

In the summer of 2026 she marked the 50th anniversary of her career with a concert, and has since spoken publicly about health problems that make it difficult for her to walk unassisted and about her fear of being forgotten; the period was further marked by the death of her older sister Tülay Özer in May 2026 at the age of 79.