Italy's Singing Nun, Sister Cristina, has cast of her veil, now going by her full name, Cristina Scuccia, as a lay singer and performer.
The young woman appeared on the Italian prime time television program Verissimo on Sunday evening, wearing a bright pink trouser suit and sporting a nose piercing, her hair flowing free of her former nun’s habit and veil.
Scuccia, who won The Voice - Italy in 2014, and now works as a waitress in Spain and continues to pursue her music career, said:
"If I look back, I look at my journey with a deep sense of gratitude.
"Change is a sign of evolution but it's always scary because it's easier to anchor yourself to your own certainties rather than questioning yourself. But I felt I had to do what I've done.”
Scuccia skyrocketed to national fame in 2014, with her televised cover of Alicia Keys’ ‘No One’ earned even the praise of iconic Italian showgirl Raffaella Carrá.
A video of the performance amassed over 90 million views on Youtube within a week, and saw Scuccia go on to perform duets with household names such as Ricky Martin and Kylie Minogue.
Scuccia, who hails from Vittoria near Ragusa in Sicily, announced to Verissimo viewers, that although she was doffing her nun's garb and headgear, she would to continue to follow her “course of faith.”
"Sister Cristina is within me, I have had a wonderful journey but also a complex and difficult one. I believe even more in life and in God, faith has not gone away. It was almost 15 years of religious life; they were the best years of my life."
