Mladenovic on Zivkovic: We Were Together, Not a Fling
The Golden Apple awards in Lajkovac went to Aleksandra Mladenovic and Uros Zivkovic on the same night. The two dated 12 years ago, and she says there is no bad blood left.
Aleksandra Mladenovic was named singer of the year at the Golden Apple awards in Lajkovac on Thursday night, and the male singer of the year trophy went to Uros Zivkovic in the same room. The two were a couple 12 years ago.
She spoke to reporters straight after the ceremony, first about the award itself.
“It feels wonderful. Motivation to be even better,” Mladenovic said.
What did Aleksandra Mladenovic say about Uros Zivkovic?
She said the relationship had a name and was never anything vague. The question came up because the two of them collected their trophies on the same night, in the same hall, after years in which their past was mostly written about second hand.
“We never had a fling. We were in a relationship.”
She went further, describing how the two of them talk now, and mentioning Zivkovic’s wife Jovana by name.
“We messaged each other, we are really fine. Jovana and I are fine too.”
That is the shortest available answer to the question everyone in Lajkovac was quietly asking, which was whether two exes on the same stage would be awkward about it. By her account, they were not.
Twelve years since the breakup
The relationship ended 12 years ago. Mladenovic described that period as one in which both of them were very young, then added the line that travelled furthest after the ceremony.
“Uros was not of legal age, I could have ended up in prison.”
What the quote makes clear without any reading between the lines is that this is an old chapter neither of them bothers to hide. Zivkovic has since married, Mladenovic built her career on her own track, and the only reason the story is back in circulation is the way the trophies fell on Thursday.
Thirteen years in the business, one change
Mladenovic has been working in music for 13 to 14 years. Asked what has changed about her in that time, she did not dress up the answer.
“Honestly, I am the same as I was at the start. I changed my hair colour,” she said.
For a singer who entered the business as a teenager, that is a loaded sentence. The Golden Apple arrives in a year when she has spent longer on stage than she had spent as an adult before her career began, and it is the first time she takes the singer of the year prize standing next to the man she dated at the very beginning of that run.
Why this ceremony matters beyond the gossip pages
This is not the first time Zivkovic has been the centre of attention this summer. We reported earlier on his statement that he had not been in contact with Sloba and would not comment on the subject, one of the rare occasions he faced reporters without a musical reason to be there.
This time the reason was musical and the questions were private again. The difference is that Mladenovic did the answering, and she did it without hedging.
Two awards and one shared past will be retold longer than the ceremony itself. The organisers in Lajkovac engineered none of it, the jury picked a singer of the year in each category, and the running order did the rest.
The statements were published on Friday, July 31, 2026, after the ceremony in Lajkovac.
