Mia Borisavljevic: 'She chose the harder path', sister in Beijing for 18 years
Mia Borisavljevic, in a Kurir interview, speaks in detail for the first time about her sister Iva, who has lived outside Serbia for 18 years and now teaches music pedagogy at a British school in Beijing.
18 years outside Serbia. 12 years in Beijing. One family separated by an ocean and the Great Wall. Mia Borisavljevic, in an interview with Kurir published on May 25, 2026, spoke in detail for the first time about her older sister Iva.
Iva works as a teacher of music pedagogy at a British school in Beijing. Mia summed up her sister’s life in a single sentence:
She chose the harder path.
From Australia to Beijing
The singer’s sister first moved to Australia to begin a postgraduate program.
She later moved to Beijing with her husband, where she still lives today. Her last name is withheld in the Kurir piece for privacy reasons. In Beijing she “lives a happy life with her family”, as the singer put it.
But the physical distance from Belgrade has been an emotional burden for years.
Six months of agony
The period after Iva left was psychologically very hard. In the same Kurir interview, the singer described a body that refused food:
For months I couldn’t eat from grief. Six months of agony, no medication helped. The doctors looked for a digestive problem, something physical, and I had to find the source myself, with a family psychologist.
Her weight at the time was around 56 kilograms.
The hardest were the last four years
The separation was deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel between Beijing and Belgrade became impossible. The result was the longest period apart since Iva first left Serbia.
The singer has been married to fellow singer Bojan Grujic since 2018, and the couple has two daughters. Of the family home in Sremska Mitrovica where she grew up, she said the family “has always been traditional”.
A reunion that lasted a month
In 2024 the sisters met again for the first time since the pandemic. Mia spent a month with her sister in Beijing, an experience she called “the most beautiful autumn of my life”.
Their next meeting is planned for late 2026. This time in Serbia, for a family milestone.
What separation has meant for the families of celebrities
A request for additional comment from her camp did not arrive before publication. Her manager, in a brief exchange with Press Serbia, said Mia “said more in this interview than she plans to in this season’s shows”.
After a pause during her second maternity leave, the singer is gradually returning to a full schedule of shows in 2026. The focus is on:
- concerts in Belgrade
- shows in Novi Sad
- the European diaspora
- a mini-tour of Montenegro and North Macedonia
Her next official date is set for late June 2026 in Drosa, although the exact day has not been announced. A return to Belgrade is planned for the autumn club season.
Do you think Iva would ever return to Serbia, or is 18 years too long?
