São Paulo’s main avenue was filled this month with thousands of people draped in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag and captivated by an imposing figure atop a semi-truck equipped with loudspeakers.
From above, the scene might have looked like one of the many political rallies held at the same venue by former President Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian far-right leader who infamously declared that he I could never love a gay son.
(Although, to be fair, the huge rainbow flag would be a clue.)
It was actually one of the largest Pride parades in the world, and the person on top of the sound truck was 30-year-old Phabullo Rodrigues da Silva, the gay son of a working-class single mother from northern Brazil.
Yet everyone in the crowd knew him as Pabllo Vittar, a 6-foot-2 drag queen a sparkling brazilian football jersey And ripped denim shorts — one of the biggest pop stars in this nation of 203 million.
“It’s so beautiful to see you in yellow and green!” Pabllo Vittar shouted to the crowd, many of whom wore fishnet stockings and thongs. She had called on revelers to wear Brazil’s national colours to reclaim the Brazilian flag from Mr Bolsonaro’s far-right movement. “Let’s dance!”
RuPaul may still be the queen of queensbut the heir to the world crown has arrived.
Over the past seven years, Pabllo Vittar has become, by some standards, the most famous drag queen in the world. She has six studio albums (one gold, one platinum and two double platinum records), her own fashion brand Adidas, a global advertising campaign with Calvin Klein and 1.8 billion streams of her songs.
She has toured the United States and Europe, taken the stage at Lollapalooza and Coachella, performed alongside Madonna at Madonna’s biggest concert, and sang at the United Nations for Madonna’s birthday. Queen Elizabeth.
Pabllo Vittar considers RuPaul, 63, the American drag queen pioneer, an inspiration, even though they have never met. And RuPaul has dismissed any talk of competition. “I LOVE AND SUPPORT @PablloVittar,” RuPaul wrote on Twitter in 2022. “Shame on you, you bunch of mean Twitter trolls trying to start a rivalry. »
However, in the modern internet age, it’s hard to argue with the idea that Vittar has begun to surpass his childhood idol. Across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube, Vittar has 36 million followers, three times more than RuPaul.
In doing so, Pabllo Vittar became the representative of Brazil’s LGBTQ paradox.
In addition to housing a crew of to burst drag the starsBrazil has adopted some of the the most extensive gay rightsSame-sex couples can marry and adopt children; transgender people can legally choose their gender; homophobic slurs are a crime; and so-called conversion therapies, which aim to turn homosexuals straight, are banned.
Yet for years, Brazil has also ranked among the deadliest countries for gay and transgender people. Since 2008, more than 1,840 transgender people have been murdered in Brazil, more than double the second deadliest country, Mexico, according to followed by Transgender European advocacy group. Brazil has led the ranking every year since the start of monitoring.
“We never know when it will be my friend, when it will be my family, when it will be me,” Pabllo Vittar said in an interview. “That’s the biggest goal of my career: to make sure young people don’t feel that fear when they go out.”
Pabllo Vittar has emerged as one of Brazil’s strongest gay voices against a far-right movement in the country, led by conservative Christian groups, that has made a heterosexual view of gender, sex and marriage a central part of its political strategy.
Pabllo Vittar has been a harsh critic of Mr Bolsonaro in the 2022 elections, write a formal complaint of the former president’s campaign after calling for his ouster from the Lollapalooza stage. When Mr. Bolsonaro lost to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a man of the left, Pabllo Vittar headlined Mr. Lula’s inauguration concert.
“A drag queen going on stage is already a political act,” Pabllo Vittar said. “I show the child and the mother in the background that they can also be where I am, that they can not be afraid, that they do not have to give up who they are.”
For Pabllo Vittar’s gay and transgender fans, she has been a powerful inspiration.
“She gives us such a sense of security,” said João Rabelo, 28, a publicist in the northern Brazilian city where Pabllo Vittar was born. “Today, I can walk down the street with my boyfriend in peace and without fear of death.”
While the public sees Pabllo Vittar dressed as a woman, the star lives his life as a man. Gender “is a social construct,” said Mr. Rodrigues da Silva (the star’s real name). “What matters most is how you feel inside. I feel like a boy, and when Pabllo Vittar comes along, that doesn’t make me a woman.”
When it comes to pronouns, she’s indifferent – when she’s not being dragged. “If I’m a drag queen, use the feminine, for God’s sake,” she said.
In a way, the lifestyle created two separate lives: Phabulla, the man, and Pabllo, the drag queen.
Phabullo is a shut-in who lives with his mother, stepfather and sister in a luxury house in a small town in the equivalent of the Brazilian Midwest. When working under the name Pabllo, she resides in a small apartment in São Paulo, the largest metropolis in Latin America.
Phabullo is shy and hates talking about himself. Pablo is the complete opposite. “If the blonde was here, she would hit on you,” the star told me in an interview, not in drag, speaking of her alter ego. “She’s naughty. She’s naughty. I’m not. »
And yes, he refers to his drag act in the third person. “Because she’s really a third person,” he said. “When I do something as Pabllo Vittar and it spills over into my life, where I’m shy, I hate it. I want to crawl into a hole.”
Mr. Rodrigues da Silva was born in Maranhão, Brazil’s poorest state, to a single mother who worked as a nurse technician. By the age of 5, he was already looking to get on stage, starting with the church choir. “I just wanted to sing,” he said, “and I wanted people to see me sing. »
He said his classmates made fun of him for being effeminate, but his mother always supported him. As a teenager, he sang on YouTube and in bars. Then, at a Halloween party at a gay club on his 18th birthday, he tried drag.
“I had never felt such a powerful feeling of freedom: being able to express what was going on in my head,” he said.
At the same time, a video of him singing a Whitney Houston song was going viral. The club’s owner, Yan Hayashi, and a music producer, Rodrigo Gorkyquickly saw the potential and began managing Mr. Rodrigues da Silva under the name Pabllo Vittar. (The name was in homage to a drag queen Mr. Rodrigues da Silva had known before.)
Pabllo Vittar quickly landed a job singing on a late-night variety show. She then began releasing music, and by 2017, she had the number one song in Brazil.
Pabllo Vittar has since become one of Brazil’s most popular singers, with her high-pitched voice, elaborate choreography and high-energy stage show. She has also gained a moderate international following, mainly within the LGBTQ community, but is currently working on an album that mixes English and Spanish.
Owen Mallon, a Chicago native and one of Pabllo Vittar’s three managers, is tasked with figuring out how to turn a Portuguese-speaking drag queen into a bankable international star. Yet he’s always been impressed by the response.
“Even if people don’t know the language, they love it and what it represents, and the show speaks for itself,” he said.
His music ranges from pop to electronic to Brazilian music. Her latest album covers popular music from the north and northeast of Brazil, where she grew up, including forró, with its accordions, and tecnobrega, with its synthesizers.
After being interviewed under the name of Mr. Rodrigues da Silva, she appeared under the name of Pabllo Vittar a few hours later at a charity concert in his native state of Maranhão. The transformation usually takes three hours. (Like an athlete collecting free sneakers, she has amassed a collection of 200 wigs donated by a London wig manufacturer.)
She wore a tight top imitating the national flag, a blonde wig, white boots, a short skirt and a thong. While waiting to go on stage with her group of male dancers in the Brazilian heat, her hairdresser was using a fan to cool her butt.
“My favorite place in the world,” she said. Then she strutted on stage and the crowd went wild.
