[citation needed] Although the family was quite poor, her mother worked to pay for her music lessons, and she stated that her childhood was happy.

At 18 years of age, Cohen (still legally male at the time) earned a living as a drag queen, parodying many famous female singers.

[5] In 1993, Dana International flew to London for male-to-female sex reassignment surgery and legally changed her name to Sharon Cohen.

[6] Returning home with her new name, that same year Cohen released her first album, titled Danna International, in Israel.

[9] She entered the Eurovision qualifying contest in Israel with a song entitled "Layla Tov, Eropa" ("Good Night Europe") which finished second in the pre-selections, but became another hit single.

Although this album was less successful than her previous efforts, it still reached gold record sales in Israel and included the hits "Don Quixote", "Menafnefet" (Waving) and the club favorite "Cinque Milla."

She became known internationally, and was interviewed by CNN, BBC, Sky News, and MTV among others mostly focusing on her life as a transsexual person before winning the contest.

"[11] Dana released "Diva" as a single in Europe[12] and it became a hit, reaching number 11 in the UK charts and the top ten in Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, and the Netherlands.

Whilst she was carrying the heavy trophy, one of the composers of the winning Swedish entry stepped on the long trail of her dress by mistake, and she fell over on stage – in front of a television audience estimated to be one million or more, making it one of the most memorable moments in the 50-year-long history of the contest.

[13] The album put her career in Israel back on track and provided two hits called "Ani Nitzachti" (I Won) and "Achrei HaKol" (After All), which eventually both went gold.

Dana was about to sign with a major label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, for an international recording contract.

After a few years away from show business, together with the relaunch of her official website, a first single of the upcoming album was released in March 2007: "HaKol Ze LeTova" ("It's All For the Best").

Dana also recorded the song "Mifrats HaAhava" ("The Love Bay") for an Israeli version of the TV-show "Paradise Hotel".

At a women's political rally in Jerusalem Dana performed a disco song alongside Livni onstage, announcing "I now formally invite you to the diva sisterhood.

On 29 May, Dana released a video clip for the song Loca, to promote the Gay Pride Tel Aviv 2013.

[19] Also in 2014, Dana was the main attraction aboard the first Jewish boat to participate in the Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.

In April 2018, Dana recorded a new version of the Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila" to promote "Israel Calling", a pre-Eurovision event.

In July 2018, Dana performed at the rally during the 2018 Israeli LGBT's strike events with her song "Ani Nitzakhti" (I Won).

Later that month she released a new version of the Jewish song "Mi Ha'Ish" (Who is the Man) to promote the Jerusalem Pride and Tolerance Parade, in which she performed in August.

She later performed Omer Adam's "Tel Aviv" and her Eurovision-winning song "Diva" during the final's opening flag parade.