São Paulo’s main avenue was packed this month with thousands of people dressed in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag and drawn by a commanding figure on a tractor-trailer equipped with a loudspeaker.
From above, the scene could be seen as one of many political rallies held at the same location by former President Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right Brazilian leader who infamously declared that he can never love a gay boy.
(However, in all fairness, the giant rainbow flag would be a telltale sign.)
In fact, it’s one of the world’s largest Pride parades, and the man on the radio truck is Phabullo Rodrigues da Silva, 30, the gay son of a working-class single mother from northern Brazil.
However, everyone in the crowd knew him as Pabllo Vittar, a 6-foot-2-inch drag queen a sparkly low-cut Brazilian football shirt And faded jeans — one of the biggest pop stars in this nation of 203 million people.
“It’s great to see you guys wearing yellow and green!” Pabllo Vittar shouted to those in the crowd, many of whom were wearing fishnets and thongs. She called on festival participants to wear the colors of Brazil’s national flag to reclaim the Brazilian flag from Mr. Bolsonaro’s right-wing movement. “Let’s dance!”
RuPaul can still Queen of QueensBut the heir to the global crown has arrived.
Over the past seven years, Pabllo Vittar has become, by some standards, the most successful drag queen in the world. She has six studio albums (one gold, one platinum, and two double platinum), her own fashion release with Adidas, a global advertising campaign with Calvin Klein, and 1.8 billion online streams. her songs.
She has toured throughout the United States and Europe; performed at Lollapalooza and Coachella; performed with Madonna at Madonna’s biggest concert; and sang at the United Nations to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s birthday.
Pabllo Vittar calls RuPaul, 63, the pioneering American drag queen, an inspiration, even though they have never met. And RuPaul has denied any talk of competition. “I LOVE & SUPPORT @PablloVittar,” RuPaul wrote on Twitter in 2022. “Shame on those bullshit Twitter trolls trying to create competition.”
However, by the numbers of the modern internet, it’s hard to argue against the idea that Pabllo Vittar has begun to surpass her childhood idol. Across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube, Pabllo Vittar has a total of 36 million followers, three times more than RuPaul.
In the process, Pabllo Vittar has come to represent Brazil’s LGBTQ paradox.
In addition to being home to one crew belong to overate drag starBrazil has adopted a world number most expansive gay rights. Same-sex couples can marry and adopt children; transgender people can legally choose their gender; homophobic rhetoric is a crime; and so-called conversion therapy, which aims to turn gay people into straight people, is banned.
However, for many years Brazil has also been ranked among the most dangerous countries for gay and transgender people. Since 2008, more than 1,840 transgender people have been murdered in Brazil, more than twice as many as in the second-deadliest country, Mexico. tracked by Transgender Europea lobbying group. Brazil has topping the charts each year since tracking began.
“We never know when it’s going to be my friends, when it’s going to be my family, when it’s going to be me,” Pabllo Vittar said in an interview. “This is the biggest goal of my career: to help young people not feel afraid to come out.”
Pabllo Vittar has emerged as one of Brazil’s loudest gay voices against the country’s right-wing movement, led by conservative Christian groups, which has made a heteronormative vision of gender, sexuality and marriage a central part of the country’s political strategy.
Pabllo Vittar is a harsh critic of Mr. Bolsonaro in the 2022 election, draw a formal complaint from the former president’s campaign after calling for his overthrow from the stage at Lollapalooza. When Mr. Bolsonaro lost. to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist, Pabllo Vittar the title of Mr. Lula’s inauguration concert.
“A drag queen coming on stage is already a political act,” Pabllo Vittar said. “I show the child and the mother in the back that they can also be where I am, without fear, without giving up who they are.”
For Pabllo Vittar’s gay and transgender fans, she is a powerful inspiration.
“She gives us a feeling of security,” said João Rabelo, 28, a journalist in the northern Brazilian city where Pabllo Vittar was born. “Today I can walk freely with my boyfriend without fear of death.”
While the public largely sees Pabllo Vittar dressed as a woman, the star lives his life as a man. Mr Rodrigues da Silva (his real name) said gender “is a social construct”. “The most important thing is how we feel inside. I felt like a boy and when Pabllo Vittar came, that didn’t make me a woman.”
As for pronouns, she’s indifferent — when not in drag. “If I’m wearing drag, use the feminine word, for God’s sake,” she said.
In a way, the lifestyle has created two separate lives: Phabullo, the man, and Pabllo, the drag queen.
Phabullo is a private person who lives with his mother, stepfather, and older sister in a luxurious house in a small city equivalent to Brazil’s Midwest. While working on Pabllo, she lived in a small apartment in São Paulo, Latin America’s largest metropolis.
Phabullo is shy and hates talking about himself. Pablo is the opposite. “If the blonde was here, she would flirt with you,” the star told me in an interview, not in drag, when talking about her alter ego. “She’s clever. She’s spoiled. I’m not.”
And yes, he talks about his drag act in the third person. “Because she really is the third person,” he says. “When I do something as Pabllo Vittar and it spills over into my life, where I feel embarrassed and I hate it. I want to crawl into a hole.”
Rodrigues da Silva was born in Maranhão, Brazil’s poorest state, to a single mother who worked as a nurse. By the age of 5, he was looking for a 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. By his teens, he was singing on YouTube and in bars. Then, at a Halloween party at a gay club on his 18th birthday, he tried drag.
“I had never experienced such a strong sense 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 went viral. The club’s owner, Yan Hayashi, is also a music producer, Rodrigo Gorky, quickly saw the potential and began managing Mr. Rodrigues da Silva under the name Pabllo Vittar. (The name pays homage to the drag queen whom Mr. Rodrigues da Silva knew before.)
Pabllo Vittar quickly landed a spot as the lead singer in a band on a late-night variety show. She then began releasing music, and by 2017, she had a number one song in Brazil.
Pabllo Vittar has since become one of Brazil’s most trusted tennis players, with his high-pitched singing voice, intricate dance moves and energetic performances. She has also garnered a moderate international following, primarily in the LGBTQ community, but is currently working on a crossover album in English and Spanish.
Owen Mallon, a Chicago native, is one of Pabllo Vittar’s three managers, tasked with finding a way to turn a Portuguese-speaking drag queen into a bankable international star. However, he is always impressed with people’s reactions.
“Even though people don’t know the language, they love her and what she stands for, and then the show speaks for itself,” he said.
Her music ranges from pop to electronic to Brazilian. Her latest album includes popular music from northern and northeastern Brazil, where she grew up, including forró, with accordion, and tecnobrega, with synthesizer.
After sitting for an interview as Mr. Rodrigues da Silva, a few hours later she emerged as Pabllo Vittar at a charity concert in her home state of Maranhão. The transformation typically takes three hours. (Like an athlete collecting free sneakers, she has amassed a collection of 200 wigs donated from a wig manufacturer in London.)
She wore a tight state flag top, a blonde wig, white boots, a tiny dress and a G-string. Waiting to take the stage with a male dancer in the Brazilian heat, her hairstylist used a fan to cool her butt.
“My favorite place in the world,” she said. Then she strut on stage and the crowd exploded.
