Karleusa on Birthday Bash: His Job Is Just to Pay

Jelena Karleusa confirmed to reporters on Saturday, August 1, at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport that she and her ex husband Dusko Tosic are planning a birthday celebration for their daughters. The singer was returning from Tivat that day. The party marks Atina’s 18th birthday and Nika’s 17th.

The celebration will be held at a hotel. Karleusa laid out the division of labor without dressing it up: Tosic pays, she handles everything else.

“It will be at a hotel, I want us to celebrate it properly. It will be like something out of a fairy tale. It’s Atina’s 18th and Nika’s 17th birthday. The nice part is that both mom and dad are involved in it.”

The rest of that statement made clear who is footing the bill. “His job is just to pay, since mom is in debt because of the new music videos,” the singer said. Tosic, according to her, also picked the band for the party.

Who Does What for the Party

Nothing in her statements points to shared costs or a split bill. Karleusa drew a clear line between the two roles: money comes from one side, logistics from the other. She mentioned debts tied to filming new music videos, which is also why, in her words, the bill is not landing on her.

Based on what she told reporters at the airport, the arrangement looks like this:

• the venue is a hotel, though she did not name it
• Tosic pays for the party and chose the band
• she is organizing everything else, from the schedule to how the celebration looks
• a large number of her fellow performers are expected to attend

Asked whether Sasa Matic would be among the guests, she answered with a smile: “Since Sasa hasn’t seen that my name wasn’t on the list, we’ll see what happens once I actually get shown the guest list. I’m joking, of course.”

Why Does a Joint Celebration Make News?

Because Karleusa has spoken about her relationship with Tosic in a far colder tone for years. She has previously talked publicly about the collapse of that marriage and about the two of them not being on good terms, and Tosic himself responded publicly after she shared details of their private messages. Now, at the airport, she talks about the same man as someone she is planning a birthday party with, without any friction.

There is another layer to it. The song “Sad je sve OK,” which won her back an audience this summer and which she also discussed at the airport, grew out of a story about divorce and family. The man now paying for his daughters’ birthday band is the same one the ballad that opened her new season was written about.

Career, Debts and Colleagues’ Support

Karleusa also spoke about work at the same event. She said the season has been good and that her new songs have done better than she expected.

“In 31 years of my career, I’ve never had this kind of support from my colleagues.”

She added that she has been through a difficult stretch and that the response from her colleagues nearly brought her to tears. She also said she kept changing the arrangements, lyrics and rhythm of her last three songs right up until release, and that she can’t guarantee what she has now won’t change another ten times.

The debts she mentioned are tied to those music videos. That is also the financial context behind her comment about who is paying for the party, not a joke tossed off in passing.

What the Daughters Asked For

According to their mother, the birthday girls’ wishes are modest. Atina loves pink, Nika loves blue. Karleusa also said her daughters have started raiding her wardrobe, prompting her to complain to Tosic about it.

“Atina loves pink, Nika loves blue… They’re very modest. Though they’ve been spending more time in my closet lately and started taking my things, so I complained to Dusko about it. He said: ‘You give to me, they give to you.’ So… how romantic. They took everything from me and now I have to walk around in this mesh outfit,” the singer joked. She had arrived at the airport in a mesh dress over a swimsuit.

No date for the celebration has been announced. Neither the hotel’s name nor the number of guests has been revealed. Atina’s eighteenth birthday is the first milestone of its kind in the family, since she is the older of the two daughters, which is why the celebration has been set up as a double event rather than two separate ones.