TV presenter Lina Qishawi on preparing to marry Arab Idol’s Mohammed Assaf

Interviewing a showbiz superstar can be a stress-inducing experience, but Al-Falastiniah TV presenter Lina Qishawi took it in her stride.

Not only was her probing chat with Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf well received, she is now preparing to marry him.

“Yes, I guess you can say it went very well,” laughs Qishawi, who is only 22 yet already an accomplished media performer.

Smiling broadly in her exclusive interview with The National, she is immaculately manicured off-screen, just as she is in front of the camera. It is clear to see that Qishawi is hugely proud of the 26-year-old Assaf.

I met the couple in London, where Assaf was promoting his new biopic,The Idol, about how he escaped from Gaza to become a pop star.

While the film itself is all about Assaf, Qishawi – for the first time – is happy to offer details about her own life. “I was born in my mother’s home country of Kazakhstan and then we moved to the Occupied Palestinian Territories – where my father comes from – when I was 4 years old,” she says. She grew up in Ramallah with her parents and two siblings, an older sister called Kristina, and Khaleel, her younger brother. Qishawi’s father, an IT engineer, had decided early on that he wanted his children to be raised in his homeland, where they can speak Arabic.

Original article by Nabila Ramdani

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TV presenter Lina Qishawi on preparing to marry Arab Idol’s Mohammed Assaf