Kirsty Bertarelli | |
---|---|
Born | Kirsty Roper 30 June 1971 Staffordshire, England |
Occupation(s) | Songwriter, singer |
Known for | Miss United Kingdom, 1988 "Black Coffee" (All Saints song) |
Website | Bertarelli's music website |
Kirsty Bertarelli (born Kirsty Roper) is a British songwriter and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss United Kingdom 1988 and represented her country at Miss World 1988 and placed 2nd Runner-up, she is former wife of Ernesto Bertarelli an Italian-Swiss businessman who was the owner of biotech giant Serono until 2007 and winner of the America's Cup in 2003 and 2007 with his yachting syndicate Alinghi.
In the Sunday Times Rich List 2017 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK, her former husband's family were placed 6th with an estimated fortune of £11.5bn, making her Britain's richest woman. [1] [2] [3] In Swiss BILANZ magazine's ranking of the wealthiest people in Switzerland, her former husband's family were placed 4th with an estimated fortune of over CHF11 billion.
Born in the United Kingdom, Kirsty spent her childhood in Stone in Staffordshire. [4] Her family formerly owned one of the world's major manufacturers of ceramic products, Churchill China.
She was crowned Miss UK in 1988, giving her the right to compete in the 1988 Miss World pageant where she placed 2nd runner-up. After moving to London, she began to write music professionally and was signed on to Warner Records. [5]
Kirsty was married to "biotechnology tycoon" Ernesto Bertarelli in 2000. [4] The couple and their children lived on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. [4] Kirsty and Ernesto divorced in the summer of 2021, making her one of richest "divorced" women of the UK, with a total estimated worth of more than £400 million. She is a trustee of The Bertarelli Foundation, which works primarily in neuroscience research and marine conservation and science. [6] [7] Recent projects have included the sponsorship of the neuroscience research at the Centre for Neuroprosthetics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and also a joint programme between that university and Harvard Medical School. [8] [9] [10] In marine conservation and marine science, the Foundation has supported the creation of a number of marine reserves, including in the British Indian Ocean Territory, Easter Island and the Turneffe Atoll in Belize. [11] [12] [13] Kirsty Bertarelli lead the family's Foundation's community work in Stoke-on-Trent, the city close to where she grew up. This includes a bursary scheme worth £4,500 for disadvantaged student at Staffordshire University, [14] a partnership with the city's YMCA, [15] and support for the annual Stoke-on-Trent Literary Festival. [16]
In 2000, she co-wrote "Black Coffee". The song was recorded by All Saints and became a worldwide hit. It was number one in the UK chart, reached the Top 10 in seven other countries and featured in various international charts for 20 weeks.
Always interested and involved in music, Bertarelli has continued to write songs. She recorded some of her songs for the UK-Swiss charity Smiling Children Foundation [17] and Le Matin described her as having a "golden voice". [18]
Universal Music liked the songs and decided to sign her. The first single, "Don't Say", was released digitally through online stores on 9 December 2009. [19] Her debut album Elusive was published on 15 January 2010, entering the Swiss charts in the 20th position.
Throughout 2010, Bertarelli published two more singles in Switzerland ("Elusive" and "More Than Anything"). She also had several live performances, including the Montreux Jazz Festival and opening acts for Simply Red in Edinburgh [20] and Zürich. [21]
In 2011, a remix of her conservation song "Green" [22] was chosen by the WWF to be their anthem to mark the Fund's 50th year of conservation at their annual Panda Ball. [23] Bertarelli donated all proceeds from the single to WWF to support their ongoing conservation projects around the world. [24]
The song is included in the acoustic album Green, first released as an iTunes digital download in February 2012. Proceeds from the album are also being donated to the WWF, as part of her continuing support for the organization.
2011 saw the release of her single "Set Your Body Free", which included remixes from Loverush UK!, Jason van Wyk, Full Intention and Nova.
In January 2012, Bertarelli signed a long-term exclusive music deal with Sony/ATV Music publishing and collaborated with world-renowned trance DJ Armin van Buuren. Van Buuren's remix of Kirsty's song "Twilight" was in dance charts for 9 weeks, peaking at No. 2 on Music Week's club chart. This collaboration has continued, with van Buuren producing Kirsty's new single "Free of War".
Bertarelli then released her next album titled Love Is, which was partly recorded in Nashville, Tennessee. [25] Her latest album, called Indigo Shores, was released on 12 May 2014 following her signing by Decca Records in the autumn of 2013. [26]
Ernesto Silvio Maurizio Bertarelli is an Italian-born Swiss billionaire businessman and philanthropist.
"Fairytale of New York" is a song written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan and recorded by their London-based band the Pogues, featuring English singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl on vocals. The song is an Irish folk-style ballad and was written as a duet, with the Pogues' singer MacGowan taking the role of the male character and MacColl playing the female character. It was originally released as a single on 23 November 1987 and later featured on the Pogues' 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.
Sharleen Eugene Spiteri is a Scottish singer and guitarist, best known as the lead singer of the rock band Texas. She has a contralto vocal range. In 2013, Texas's worldwide album sales were counted at 40 million records.
"Black Coffee" is a song by English girl group All Saints from their second studio album, Saints & Sinners (2000). It was released on 2 October 2000 by London Records as the album's second single. The track was produced by William Orbit, and written by Tom Nichols, Alexander von Soos and Kirsty Bertarelli, initially intended as a single for Kirsty under the title "I Wouldn't Wanna Be". It is a mellow electropop, acid techno and R&B song, unique for its production-laden sound featuring breathy keyboards, glitching electronics and elements of ambient music. A wistful love song, its lyrics stem from Kirsty's relationship with Swiss entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli, detailing feelings of love at first sight and contentment.
Justine Simone Freha Suissa is a British singer-songwriter, the vocalist of trance group OceanLab.
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The Sunday Times Rich List 2008 was published on 27 April 2008.
The Bertarelli Foundation is a private foundation founded by the Bertarelli family; brother and sister Ernesto and Dona Bertarelli, who are co-Chairs of the Foundation, and their mother, Maria Iris Bertarelli. It was established in 1998 in memory of Fabio Bertarelli and is based in Gstaad, Switzerland. For ten years, the Bertarelli Foundation focused on promoting an understanding of infertility, especially multiple gestations. This reflected the work of the family’s business, Ares-Serono, in the field, including its development of influential infertility treatment Pergonal. Following the sale of Serono, the Bertarelli Foundation refocused its activities onto the fields of marine conservation and neuroscience research, as well as projects in their local communities. The Foundation has a sister organisation in Italy, the Fondazione Bertarelli, which promotes cultural activities in Tuscany, where the family’s ColleMassari wine estate is located.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States.
Kirsty Anna MacColl was an English singer and songwriter, daughter of folk singer Ewan MacColl. She recorded several pop hits in the 1980s and 1990s, including "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" and cover versions of Billy Bragg's "A New England" and the Kinks' "Days". Her first single, "They Don't Know", had chart success a few years later when covered by Tracey Ullman. MacColl also sang on a number of recordings produced by her then-husband Steve Lillywhite, most notably "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues. Her death in 2000 led to the "Justice for Kirsty" campaign.
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