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By Jack Nicas
Photographs via Victor Moriyama
Jack Nicas met Pabllo Vittar at a concert in his home state of Maranhão, in northern Brazil.
São Paulo’s main street was filled this month with thousands of people dressed in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag and captivated by a towering figure atop a truck equipped with loudspeakers.
Seen from above, the scene may have looked like one of several political rallies held at the same location by former President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right leader who sadly said he might never love a gay son.
(But to be honest, the huge rainbow flag would be a gift. )
It was one of the largest Pride parades in the world, and the user atop the sound truck was 30-year-old Phabullo Rodrigues da Silva, the gay son of a working-class single mother in northern Brazil.
Still, everyone in the crowd knew him as Pabllo Vittar, a 6-foot-2 drag queen dressed in a gleaming Brazilian T-shirt and tattered denim shorts, one of the biggest pop stars in this country of 203 million people.
“It’s so cute to see you dressed in yellow and green!” shouted Pabllo Vittar to the crowd, many of whom were wearing fishnet stockings and thongs. He had called on partygoers to wear Brazil’s national colors next to Mr. Bolsonaro’s Brazilian flag. Dance! »
RuPaul may still be the queen of queens, but the heir to the world crown has arrived.
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