This month, Sao Paulo’s main street was packed with thousands of people dressed in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag, drawn by a towering figure on a trailer equipped with loudspeakers.
From above, it might have looked like any other political rallies held by former President Jair Bolsonaro, who famously declared that he could never love a gay son.
(Although the huge rainbow flag might have been a clue.)
In fact, it was one of the largest Pride parades in the world, and the person in the van with the sound was Phabullo Rodrigues da Silva, 30, the gay son of a working-class single mother from northern Brazil.
But everyone knew him as Pabllo Vittar, a six-foot-tall drag queen in a shiny Brazilian soccer jersey and ripped denim shorts: one of the biggest pop stars in this nation of 203 million.
“It’s so nice to see you in yellow and green!” Pabllo Vittar shouted to the crowd, many of them dressed in fishnets and flip-flops. He had urged revelers to reclaim the Brazilian flag from Bolsonaro’s right-wing movement. “Let’s dance!”
RuPaul may still be the queen of queens, but the heir to the world crown has arrived.
Over the past seven years, Pabllo Vittar has become, by some measures, the most successful drag queen in the world. She has six studio albums, her own fashion line with Adidas, a global campaign with Calvin Klein, and 1.8 billion streams of her songs.
She has toured the US and Europe, performed at Lollapalooza and Coachella, shared the stage with Madonna and sang at the United Nations for Queen Elizabeth’s birthday.
Pabllo Vittar calls RuPaul an inspiration, even though they’ve never met. RuPaul has dismissed any talk of a rivalry. “I LOVE and SUPPORT @PablloVittar,” RuPaul wrote on Twitter in 2022.
By modern internet metrics, it’s hard to argue that Pabllo Vittar has begun to overshadow his childhood idol. Across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube, Pabllo Vittar has 36 million followers, three times that of RuPaul.
Meanwhile, Pabllo Vittar has become the symbol of the Brazilian LGBTQ paradox.
Brazil, home to emerging drag stars, has some of the most extensive gay rights in the world. However, it is 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 number of the second-deadliest country, Mexico.
“We never know when it’s going to be my friend, my family or me,” Pabllo Vittar said. “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, countering a right-wing movement led by conservative Christian groups that have placed heterosexual views of gender, sex and marriage at the center of their political strategy.
Pabllo Vittar was a fierce critic of Bolsonaro during the 2022 election, drawing a formal complaint from the former president’s campaign after calling for his ejection from the Lollapalooza stage. When Bolsonaro lost to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Pabllo Vittar performed at Lula’s inaugural concert.
“A drag queen going on stage is already a political act,” Pabllo Vittar said. “I show the child and the mother that they can be where I am, not be afraid and not give up who they are.”
For Pabllo Vittar’s gay and transgender fans, she has been a powerful source of inspiration.
“It gives us a sense of security,” said João Rabelo, 28, from the northern Brazilian city where Pabllo Vittar was born. “Today I can walk down the street with my boyfriend relaxed and not fear death.”
While the public sees Pabllo Vittar dressed as a woman, the star lives as a man. Gender “is a social construction,” said Rodrigues da Silva (the star’s real name). “What matters most is how we feel inside. I feel like a boy, and when Pabllo Vittar comes along, he doesn’t make me a woman.”
As for pronouns, he’s indifferent when he’s not in drag. “If I’m in drag, I’m feminine, for God’s sake,” he said.
This lifestyle created two separate lives: Phabullo, the man, and Pabllo, the drag queen.
Phabullo is a recluse who lives with his family in a luxury house in a small town in Brazil’s equivalent of the Midwest. When he works as Pabllo, he stays in a small apartment in São Paulo.
Phabullo is shy and doesn’t like to be noticed. Pabllo is the opposite. “If the blonde was here, she would hit on you,” he said.