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World stars of Hungarian origin: Kesha, Houdini, Halsey, Drew Barrymore
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Some world stars proudly boast about being “magyar” when they meet another person from Hungary, even if the Hungarian ancestor in their family line was their great-great-grandmother – who was half Hungarian and half of another nationality. Still, there are many Hungarian performers and celebrities of Hungarian origin out there who have achieved international fame. In this post, we will list a few of them.
Kesha
The singer was raised by a single mother who was born into a Hungarian family, a fact of which she is proud, so much so that the singer’s famous stage name is also Hungarian. Pebe Sebert – who used to work as a songwriter and even composed songs for Dolly Parton – told in a TikTok video that she came up with the name Kesha for her daughter, which was originally derived from a Hungarian surname. Sebert made a minor change though to make it easier to pronounce in English. The surname she mentions in the video is probably “Kecse”, according to the Hungarian commenters.
- Read also: This Hungarian film ranked TOP 2 on Netflix
Tommy Ramone
Born Tamás Erdélyi in Budapest in 1949, the famed rockstar is the son of a Jewish photographer couple who survived the Holocaust hiding from Nazis, according to Index.hu. The family left the country after the ’56 revolution and settled in the Bronx in 1957. As a high school student, he played guitar in garage bands and later took on studio gigs, even working on Jimi Hendrix’s 1970 album. He eventually joined the Ramones band as a drummer and played on their first three albums. He is also credited with the song I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend and wrote a major part of the legendary Blitzkrieg Bop.
Halsey
Ashley Nicolette Frangipane was born in New Jersey in 1994. The singer is the winner of numerous Billboard Awards and has been nominated for three Grammy Awards in her career. Her ancestry is not the easiest to trace back. Halsey’s father is African-American and has Irish ancestry, while her mother is half Hungarian and half Italian. Her maternal grandfather came from a family in Vas County, their surname was Jakab.
