Biography
Yasemin Kay Allen was born on 10 July 1989 in London to an English father, Dudley Allen, and Suna Yıldızoğlu, the English-born actress and singer who took Turkish citizenship. The family moved to Turkey when she was three months old. After her parents divorced she spent her school years in Australia and returned to Turkey at eighteen. She graduated from the theatre department of the Müjdat Gezen Conservatory in 2008.
That year she got the lead in the series Elif and then appeared in Kavak Yelleri and Yerden Yüksek. She became widely known as Irmak Tunalı in Merhamet (2013 to 2014), then played Defne Sultan in Muhteşem Yüzyıl and made her film debut opposite Özcan Deniz in Su ve Ateş. Abroad she is known as Ece in Fi and Katrina Zarkova in the British series Strike Back.
In January 2026 she married the businessman Erdal Kaya, and the same month she returned to Turkish screens in Netflix‘s Ayrılık da Sevdaya Dahil, playing Leyla alongside İbrahim Çelikkol and Emine Meyrem in Yavuz Turgul’s eight-episode drama.
