 Mika has also starred in his own television variety show in Italy, Stasera Casa Mika, which won the 2017 Rose d'Or Award for Entertainment.Mika was born in Beirut, the third of five children (three sisters Yasmine, Paloma and Zuleika and one brother Fortuné), to an American-born Lebanese mother and an Israeli-born American father, Mary Joan "Joannie" (née Mouakad) (daughter of John Mouakad and Odette Farah) and Michael Holbrook Penniman (son of William Frederick Penniman III and Dorothy Dyar).His father was a banker and was born in Jerusalem, where his own father – Mika's paternal grandfather William Frederick Penniman III – was a diplomat.