Losliya Mariyanesan

Losliya Mariyanesan (Tamil: லாஸ்லியா மரியனேசன், romanized: Lāsliyā Mariyaṉēcaṉ; born 23 March 1996) is a Sri Lankan-Indian actress, news reader, television presenter. She became an household name in the Indian television space after taking part in the Bigg Boss season 3 hosted by Kamal Haasan.
Losliya was born on 23 March 1996 in Kilinochchi, Northern Province of Sri Lanka in a typical orthodox Tamil Christian family. Both her parents hailed from the Jaffna District. Due to the uncertainties pertaining to the Eelam War, her family relocated to Trincomalee, Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Her parents apparently built a small hut made out of thatching in a small village called Anbuvelippuram in Trincomalee, as their hopes faded due to the budget constraints and other difficulties. Her father Mariyanesan in around 2009 decided to pursue greener pastures with the advent of expecting better employment opportunities by travelling to Canada in order to uplift his family who had been deprived of basic needs due to being poverty stricken and he had stayed in Canada for over 10 years in order to look after his family and to cope up with the cost of living. Losliya along with her two sisters attended the St. Mary's College, Trincomalee to pursue primary and secondary education amid severe difficulties. Losliya was a bright student during her schooling years, as she volunteered and took part in extra-curricular activities, in addition to the academics and she honed her skills and talents by participating in Tamil cultural events, Tamil literary competitions and Tamil debates at school level.
Her father S. Mariyanesan died in Canada on 15 November 2020 due to cardiac arrest.
She initially joined the Capital Maharaja Organisation and began working as a television presenter by hosting television programmes which were broadcast in Shakthi TV. She joined Shakthi TV at the age of 18 in around 2015, at a time when she had been waiting for her GCE Advanced Level Examination results to be announced. It was revealed that an opportunity like entering media came as a serendipity, as it came knocking at the door with Losliya having nothing to lose, considering the fact that she would have only decided to plan out things for the future, including the career decisions, based on how the outcome of the Advanced Level Examination would turn out to be. She apparently gained good grades in her A/L examination in the stream she chose to specialize and hence she also received the privilege of entering the state/government university. However, she had faced a major dilemma in the form of an opportunity cost over whether to stick with her mainstream media career aspirations or enter the state university considering the fact that the state university was a privilege to majority of the Sri Lankans, since it is a government sponsored once-in-a-lifetime free education system to the students, which only the top performing students are guaranteed based on their z-score after their exceptional academic performances in GCE Advanced Level Examination. Losliya made a huge sacrifice by forgoing the good fortune of gaining free education in the form of college entrance and instead she made a gamble by sticking with the media career.
She also became a news reader by joining the News First unit affliated with the Capital Maharaja Organisation. She spent a duration approximately four years with the production team of Shakthi TV during her initial phase of her career especially when she concentrated in hosting reality shows as an anchor and reading news as a news reader. During her stint at Shakthi TV, she hosted Good Morning Sri Lanka, a morning talk show from 2015 to 2018 and from 2018 to 2019, she plied her trade as a newsreader in News First. In 2019, she quit Shakthi TV and made a decision to enter the Indian Tamil television reality show Bigg Boss and she received the opportunity to enter the Star Vijay's Bigg Boss season 3. It was only in 2019 that she made her maiden visit to the Indian offshore and she revealed within first three months since her arrival to India, she landed a role by getting an offer from the production unit of Bigg Boss to be roped in as one of the contestants of the show. She appeared to have faced an impromptu face-to-face interview before finalising the offer to enter into the Bigg Boss house. She made rapid strides and rose to prominence and limelight after taking part in the Bigg Boss, where she cemented her authority and boosted her credentials after emerging as 2nd-runnersup of the season 3 and she occupied the Bigg Boss house for 105 days. She gained publicity and widespread popularity from Tamil Nadu general audience while she also gained sympathy from the audience, especially considering the fact that she hailed from the minority Tamil community in Sri Lanka which faced the brunt of the Sri Lankan civil war and she was also praised for her pleasant positive attitude which she displayed throughout the season. However, she also received criticism and bashing from a set of audience after having developed a romantic interest with her fellow contestant Kavin, which also eventually prompted skyrocketing television rating points of Star Vijay and Bigg Boss show. Prior to her participation in the Bigg Boss contest in 2019, she was largely an unknown commodity in mainstream media in the context of Tamil Nadu, as she was a known face only in Sri Lanka among the Sri Lankan audience. In 2020, she acted in a television commercial advertisement alongside Ashwin Kumar Lakshmikanthan for the marketing purposes by promoting Blesso branded beauty soap which was a flagship brand of the Aachi Group.
It was after her breakthrough season in Bigg Boss, that she gained attention from cine field and she garnered several film acting offers from the filmmakers. She revealed that her lack of camera fear through the routine work of being a television host and news reader during the early phase of her career had eventually helped her to ease the burden and pressure of acting in big budgeted films, especially when she got the film acting offers one after the other in the pipeline. She made her film acting debut with John Paul Raj and Sham Surya's joint collaborative directorial venture Friendship (2021), a remake of the Malayalam-language film Queen, where she shared screenspace with the likes of former Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh and Arjun. She was signed on to play the lead role opposite Harbhajan Singh in Friendship. Her second film appearance came in Koogle Kuttappa (2022), where she played one of the main leads and shared screenspace with K. S. Ravikumar and fellow Sri Lankan actor Tharshan and it was a remake of the Malayalam-language film Android Kunjappan Version 5.25. Her third film appearance came in Mr. Housekeeping (2025), where she was cast in the lead role opposite Hari Bhaskar.