Tula Paulinea "Tulisa" Contostavlos was born July 13, 1988 in Camden Town, North London, is actress of Greek and Irish descent to Ann Byrne who was formerly a member of 80's band Jeep and Steve (Plato) Contostavlos also part of Mungo Jerry English rock band. She is best known for being a member of N-Dubz, with her cousin Dino "Dappy" Contostavlos and their friend Richard "Fazer" Rawson.
The N-Dubz star grew up in a tough area of London and admits she and her contemporaries indulged in behaviour such as drinking alcohol and taking drugs while in their early teens.
She said: When I was 12 I wanted to have fun. I didn’t want to go back to the one-bedroom council flat, crying myself to sleep at night. I became a lot gobbier and had my first boyfriend.’
And when asked how long she waited before she had sex, she added: ‘I can’t say too long. I was about to turn 15. I was one of the lucky ones to keep my virginity for as long as I did.’
She said she knew pupils who were having sex ‘in the toilets at the age of 12 in break time’.
Tulisa blames her wayward youth on being bullied at school, admitting she fell in with a "tough crowd in order to escape savage beatings from her schoolmates.
She admitted in an interview with Style magazine: "My way of getting out of it was getting in with this really hard crowd - the hardest of the hard in the area. We were a wild bunch of girls but I was content being protected.
"Yeah we did naughty things. We pinched a couple of handbags and got into fights I wasn't part of a girl gang though, we were just a bunch of troublesome chicks."