Ergen started her career in modeling and acting, and then entered the music market as a lead singer. The 1988 film Biz Ayrılamayız (We Cannot Separate), starring Bülent Ersoy, was Ergen's first movie experience. In the same year, she shared the lead role with Kenan Kalav in the movie Deniz Yıldızı, directed by Kartal Tibet. After these films, Ergen appeared in The Hunt with Cüneyt Arkın and Law Fighters with Eşref Kolçak, and lost his older brother, who was five years older than him, in a car accident. In 1994, Ergen appeared in Maksim Gazinosu as a member of İbrahim Tatlıses' understudy and also took part in Tatlıses' music video "Haydi Söyle". Ergen, who started her music career in this period, also worked in Nurdan Torun's sub-cast.

Later, she appeared in the TV series Fırat, directed and starring İbrahim Tatlıses. In December 1999, the singer's second studio album Kör Aşık was released. The album featured songwriters such as Şehrazat and Sezen Aksu. At the same time, Ergen was working on the television program Gümbür Gümbürbür Gülbence and played the character of the same name in the TV series Marziye between 1998-2001.

In 2001, she received the Best Actress award at the Golden Butterfly Awards for her character Melek in the TV series Dadı. In 2002, she received the "Composition of the Year" award at the Kral TV Video Music Awards for the title song of her album Sade ve Sadece, "Abayı Yaktım". In the same period, the singer published a magazine called Gülbence and played Hürrem Sultan in the series Hürrem Sultan. In 2004, her album Uçacaksın sold 600,000 copies and received a diamond award from MÜ-YAP. In 2009, she had a duet with Oğuzhan Koç with the song "Giden Günlerim Oldu", which stayed at number one on the Official Turkey chart for the longest time of the year.