Dilber Ay

Dilber Ay — Biography

Dilber Ay, born Dilber Bağbuş to a Kurdish-Yörük family of the Kureyşan tribe, was born on 1 January 1956 in the Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş; her family later moved to Ankara and then to Bolu-Düzce. Her voice was discovered in a radio talent contest in Düzce, and she went on to perform on TRT Radio from 1974, becoming known for Barak folk songs and the 1981 track "Meyrik", as well as the Adıyaman folk song known as "Tavukları Pişirmişem", which became a cultural phenomenon. She was arrested in Germany after injuring a man who harassed her during a concert and served eight months in a Frankfurt jail before being extradited to Turkey. She married for a third time in 1998, to İbrahim Karakaş. Between 2011 and 2015 she hosted the television programme "Kadere Mahkûmlar", and from 2012 she became a mainstream pop-culture figure through television appearances. Her role in the film Beynelmilel (2006) won her an award at the Golden Boll Film Festival. She died in Ankara on 29 April 2019; her life was dramatized in the 2021 film Dilberay.