Esra Erol

Esra Erol — Biography

Born in Istanbul on 12 May 1982, Esra Erol Özbir was one of five daughters of a police-officer father. She completed part of her schooling in Kütahya, where her father was posted, later took diction lessons and studied at Marmara University's Radio and Television department. Her television career opened in 2003 when she began fronting Turkuaz, a Kanal D show, and she went on to host a string of long-running matchmaking programs on Star TV, ATV and Fox TV, becoming one of the field's most recognizable presenters and twice winning the Golden Butterfly Award for Best Female Presenter. Alongside presenting, she appeared between 2004 and 2010 in the series Kalp Gözü, Banu and Başkan, and in the films Kamerayla İzdivaç and Kanal-i Zasyon. In 2010 she launched the Umut Evi initiative, providing free counselling to thousands of women, and ran a campaign donating electric wheelchairs to disabled citizens. She is married to Ali Özbir and is the mother of two children.