Born Larisa Roxana Giurgiu on 5 January 2000 in Cluj-Napoca, Roxen discovered her passion for music at the age of seven. She also took singing and piano lessons as a child. Signed by Global Records, she was featured on Romanian producer Sickotoy's "You Don't Love Me" in August 2019. The single attained commercial success in Romania, reaching number three on the country's Airplay 100 chart, and being playslisted by radio stations in several territories including France, United States, Russia and Spain. Her debut single "Ce-ți cântă dragostea" released later that year in November peaked at number one in Romania. Music critics have since regarded the singer's primary genre as being deep house, and compared her music style and appearance to that of Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish. In a București FM interview, Roxen cited Beyoncé as one of her major inspirations. In early February 2020, it was reported that Roxen was one of three artists shortlisted to represent Romania at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020; broadcaster Romanian Television had collaborated with Global Records for the selection. On 11 February, she was revealed by TVR as the Romanian representative. Her five songs for Selecția Națională—"Alcohol You", "Beautiful Disaster", "Cherry Red", "Colors" and "Storm"—were released on 21 February. "Alcohol You" emerged as the winner of the national final on 1 March. However, on 18 March, the European Broadcasting Union announced the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 due to the pandemic of the coronavirus disease2019 in China and its spread to other countries. Although TVR had considered retaining "Alcohol You" as a song for the Eurovision Song Contest 2021, EBU soon after announced that intended 2020 entries were not eligible for the following year. Roxen was nonetheless internally selected for the 2021 contest. In June 2020, the singer was hired as the brand ambassador for Romanian box-dye hair color product Loncolor Expert HEMPstyle; she appeared on product packagings and in a commercial which prominently featured the Selecția Națională entry "Storm".
Personal life
As of June 2020, Roxen resides in Bucharest. At the beginning the same month, the singer was allegedly emotionally abused and blackmailed by her now ex-boyfriend and obtained a restraining order against him after she made a complaint to the local police.
