Azra Akın (born 8 December 1981) is a Turkish-Dutch actress, dancer, model and beauty queen who was crowned

Miss World 2002 Miss World 2002, the 52nd edition of the Miss World pageant, was held on 7 December 2002 at the Alexandra Palace in London, United Kingdom. It was initially intended to be staged in Abuja, but due to religious riots in the nearby city of Kadun ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

on December 7, 2002. She is best known for series ''Yağmur Zamanı''

Biography

Akın was born in

Almelo Almelo () is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands. The main population centres in the town are Aadorp, Almelo, Mariaparochie, and Bornerbroek. Almelo has about 72,000 inhabitants in the middle of the rolling countryside of Twente, ...

, Netherlands, to Turkish parents. Her father (Nazım) and mother (Ayda) emigrated from Turkey to the Netherlands in 1971. Akın has one younger sister named Doruk. In 1998, at the age of 17, Akın was selected Elite Model of Turkey; she then participated in the Europe Elite Model competition in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

, France, where she reached the final 15. She continued modelling in Germany for the German catalogue

Otto Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded fro ...

. In 2002, Azra won

Star TV Star TV may refer to: * E! (Canadian TV channel) (formerly Star!), a Canadian entertainment news channel * Las Estrellas (Spanish for The Stars), the Mexican television network * Estrella TV (Spanish for Star TV), the American Spanish-language net ...

's Miss Turkey. Thus, she represented Turkey in the Miss World beauty pageant which was held on December 7, 2002, at

Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...

, London, which she also won. Akin accepted the tiara and $156,000 prize from the previous year's winner

Agbani Darego Chief Ibiagbanidokibubo Asenite 'Agbani' Darego, MFR (born 22 December 1982) is a Nigerian model and beauty queen who was crowned Miss World in 2001. She was the first black African to win Miss World. Early life Abonnema-native Darego was born ...

. During her reign, Akın travelled to the United Kingdom, Turkey, the United States, New Zealand, Ireland, Jamaica, Australia, China and many more countries. In 2003, she won a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

when she participated in the British reality TV show '' The Games''. In 2004, Akın modelled for the postcards of the

Eurovision Song Contest 2004 The Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the 49th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Istanbul, Turkey, following the country's victory at the with the song "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener. Organised by the European Broa ...

which were shown before each song. In 2010, she won on the TV dance show ''Yok Boyle Dans'', the Turkish version of ''Dancing With the Stars''. In 2017, she married Turkish male dancer and model Atakan Koru.

Filmography

References

External links

* * (suspended site)
Azra Akın Pictures
at TurkishStarsDaily.com 1981 births Living people Dutch people of Turkish descent Miss Turkey winners Miss World 2002 delegates Miss World winners People from Almelo Reality show winners Turkish film actresses Turkish female models Turkish television actresses Dutch emigrants to Turkey Dutch beauty pageant winners Turkish beauty pageant winners 20th-century Turkish actresses {{Turkey-actor-stub