Ruth Lorenzo

Ruth Lorenzo

Ruth Lorenzo is a Spanish singer from Las Torres de Cotillas, Spain. She is best known for her appearances on television talent shows and for representing Spain at Eurovision in 2014.

Early life and musical background

From an early age, Lorenzo develops an interest in music and performance. She grows up singing along to English-language songs, and her mother encourages that interest through music and dancing at home. She later discovers opera through the work of Montserrat Caballé and imitates her singing until she matches her style closely. When her family moves to the United States at the age of 12, she takes part in music, theatre, dance and choir classes at school, performs in competitions, and plays lead roles in My Fair Lady and Phantom of the Opera. The family returns to Spain when she is 16, and financial pressure leads her to stop taking singing lessons. She later auditions for Operación Triunfo in Spain at 19.

Television exposure and The X Factor

Lorenzo gains wider recognition in 2008 on the fifth series of the British version of The X Factor, where she finishes fifth. Her version of Prince’s “Purple Rain” attracts more than one million YouTube views in less than a week before the video is removed.

Eurovision Song Contest

In 2014, Lorenzo submits her self-written song “Dancing in the Rain” for the Spanish national selection for Eurovision and receives the highest public vote. She goes on to represent Spain in Copenhagen, where the song scores 74 points and finishes 10th out of 37 entries. That result places her among Spain’s most successful Eurovision entrants of the previous 15 years.

Albums, singles and later work

Her debut album, Planeta Azul (also known as Blue Planet), is released in October 2014 and includes the radio singles “Gigantes” and “Renuncio”. A special reissue follows in 2015 with additional tracks and songs previously recorded in English. From that edition, “99” is issued as a single, followed by “Echo”.

In 2016, Lorenzo appears on the fourth season of the television show Tu Cara Me Suena, where celebrity contestants impersonate different music artists each week. She wins the series after the final, taking the top place with 47% of the three-way televote. At the end of 2016, she begins the Voces Tour across Spain and releases the charity single “Voces”.

In 2017, she releases “Good Girls Don’t Lie”, the first song from Loveaholic. The single reaches number one in sales on major digital platforms and becomes a trending topic on Twitter, while also receiving airplay on major Spanish radio stations. Loveaholic follows in 2018 and includes a collaboration with Jeff Beck; it reaches number 9 on the Spanish Albums Chart. A second single from the album also becomes commercially successful. In 2019, she releases “Underworld” as the lead single from a third studio album.

Stage work

Lorenzo also works in musical theatre, making her debut in the role of God in La Llamada at Teatro Lara in Madrid in 2018.