Lera Kudryavtseva, whose full name is Valeria Lvovna Kudryavtseva, was born on May 19, 1971, in Ust-Kamenogorsk, East Kazakhstan Region of the former Kazakh SSR. She was born into a family of researchers. Her parents are Lev Nikolaevich Kudryavtsev and Alexandra Ivanovna Kudryavtseva. She also has an older sister, Oksana Zhukova, who works in business and helps manage her accounting.
As a child, Lera Kudryavtseva wanted to become a doctor because she admired her mother’s work in a laboratory. Later, she dreamed of becoming a flight attendant before deciding to build a career in the creative field. She studied theater directing at a cultural college in Ust-Kamenogorsk and later graduated from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS), where she studied acting.
She began her career as a backing vocalist and dancer, performing with artists including Svetlana Vladimirskaya, Evgeny Osin, Igor Sarukhanov, and Bogdan Titomir. In 1995, at the age of 24, she started working on television after successfully passing a casting for the show Partiynaya Zona, where Igor Vernik encouraged her to audition.
In 2004, Kudryavtseva made her acting debut in the television series Streets of Broken Lights. She later became a well-known host of major music events, including Song of the Year, the Muz-TV Awards, New Wave, and Jurmala. She also took part in television competitions such as Dancing with the Stars, where she finished second, and Star Ice, where she won first place with her skating partner. Since 2016, she has hosted the NTV program Secret for a Million, where celebrity guests answer personal questions about their lives.
Throughout her television career, Lera Kudryavtseva has hosted many popular programs, including MuzOboz, New Wave, Song of the Year, Club of Ex-Wives, Cultural Exchange, Eat and Lose Weight, Secret for a Million, Stars Aligned, and Superstar, where she also served as a judge.
In her personal life, Kudryavtseva has been married three times. Her first husband was Sergey Lenyuk, the drummer of the band Laskovy May. They married in 1990 and had a son named Zhan before divorcing two years later. In 2004, she married businessman Matvey Morozov, but the marriage ended after three years. From 2008 to 2012, she was in a relationship with singer Sergey Lazarev. In 2013, she married hockey player Igor Makarov, and five years later they welcomed their daughter Maria.
In addition to television, Lera Kudryavtseva has appeared in several films and TV series and has also worked as a voice actress in animated movies. She has taken part in music videos and received official recognition for her work in Russian media. In July 2021, she was awarded a presidential commendation for her contribution to the development of the media and for many years of dedicated work.
