Tulisa heartbroken as famous dad dies as cousin Dappy speaks out

Tulisa's father, Steve Contostavlos, has died and the N-Dubz star took to social media to pay tribute. She shared a childhood picture of her cuddling up to the keyboard player, who went by the name of Plato, and wrote: "Love you pops, rest in peace. Forever my father's daughter."

Her cousin Dappy, who is in N-Dubz with her alongside Fazer, previously paid tribute to Steve as he shared a clip of himself on social media with his uncle alongside a white dove emoji. At the time, Tulisa posted a broken heart emoji on the post, with Dappy responding to her: "I'm so sorry T."

Last year, I'm A Celeb star Tulisa opened up about her 'unconventional relationship' with her dad, Steve. She said on Paul Brunson’s podcast We Need To Talk: “Me and my dad's relationship has not been a conventional one.

"I would say me and my dad now we're just more friends that kind of have an understanding of one another."

Steve had his own successful music career as the keyboardist for Mungo Jerry. Mungo Jerry was largely successful in the 70s after landing number one hit In The Summertime, with Plato playing on the keyboard.

His brother Byron - who was Tulisa's uncle and father of her cousin and fellow N-Dubz star Dappy - played bass guitar in the group.

Tulisa previously opened up to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast about growing up in a musical household.

Fearne told Tulisa: "You grew up in a really musical household. Your mum was a singer, your dad was in Mungo Jerry and you had that sense that music was something that was important."

Tulisa answered: "My dad had a little studio in Dollis Hill and he used to bring me there sometimes when he was working. He put me on the mic at the age of five. I was singing Little Mermaid.

"I just knew there was nothing else I felt passionate about." Steve once candidly discussed how he taught Tulisa to stand up for herself after getting relentlessly bullied at school over her mum's mental health.

Her mum, Ann, suffered from schizophrenia, which saw her in and out of hospital as she slipped into ­terrifying psychotic episodes, leaving her unable to look after herself, let alone her ­daughter. Children in her class began to tease Tulisa about her mother's condition, leaving her to sob for days over their taunts.

He revealed to the Sunday Mirror that he taught her to stick up for herself. "My daughter was ­horribly bullied. It was awful. Children would scream, 'Your mum's a loony'," he said in 2012. "Tulisa was about five years old when it first started. She would come home crying all the time.

"In the end I had to tell her, 'I can’t go and sort this problem out for you. This is the kind of thing you are going to face in life and you have to stand up for yourself'.

"Then one day when she was about seven, after I had trained her for about six months, she came back from school and said, ‘Dad I knocked one of them out. You were right Dad, I did it'. It had to be done, the misery that child went through at school was ­unbelievable. Every time she went in she was terrified."

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