Rio Gringos

In the last few weeks, quite a few gringo celebrities have made their way to Rio de Janeiro.

Beyonce was on tour in Brazil and did two shows in Rio, where she then took time out to shoot a video with Alicia Keys and visit Cristo. Sadly, the classiest celebrities were the first to leave.

After that, Madonna arrived to be with her boyfriend Jesus to attend Carnival. Maybe someone tipped her off that meeting with a presidential candidate during an election year is kind of, well, unkosher, since this time she made appearances with both major candidates, perhaps in an attempt to be impartial. She made a little trip to São Paulo to hang out with the Governor Serra to discuss setting up a branch of her NGO there, and then she spent a night at the Sambadrome hosted by the Rio governor and joined by Lula's chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, who is also running for president. (She also brought two of her kids and Jesus along for the twelve hour bash).

Paris Hilton is also in Rio for Carnival, since she's being paid by Devassa beer to promote their brand. (I'm wondering if anyone told her what devassa means in Portuguese. I'd hope so, but assuming they did, it makes the whole affair even less tasteful). Meanwhile, at one of the sponsored events, she danced around ridiculously and got so drunk she basically couldn't stand up, giving a writer at Globo the opportunity to write one of the dumbest headlines of all time. 

Also in town for the festivities were Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro and Scottish actor Gerard Butler, who hung out together at the Copacabana Palace ball and at the Sambodrome with Madonna.

It's great that Brazil is attracting celebrities with Madonna and Beyonce's star power, and it will hopefully attract more celebrities along those lines in the near future, though hopefully not just for Carnival, and hopefully not just in Rio. The goal is for celebrities to take Brazil seriously, sort of like Beyonce did, as a (dignified) business opportunity, and not just a wild party. Because no good can come of this Paris Hilton business, not even a new hotel.

Addendum: Totally forgot but meant to include that Madonna decided to waltz out onto the avenida during Imperatriz's performance and created a huge scene and messed up their procession, which possibly made them lose points with the judges. Lovely.

And in a new detail thanks to Marina's tip, the governor of Rio, Sergio Cabral, supposed introduced Dilma as "the first female president of Brazil" to Madonna.

Comments

[Andrew]

Leave it to Paris Hilton to embarrass Americans and Brazilians alike. Sigh.

[brazinglish]

(not so) random fact: according to Monica Bergamo, Cabral introduced Dilma to Madonna as "Brazil's first female president".

it's interesting having celebrities coming, in a hey, you can come, they won't eat you alive or steal your kidneys" sense, but why do I get the feeling Madonna's only here to collect?

[Eric]

Realmente o pior manchete de jornal já escrito. Não é por acaso que foi da Globo.

[Rio Gringa]

Hey Marina, That is incredibly disturbing. I agree with you about Madonna, I'm kind of scared of her. Plus it pisses me off that she can just waltz in and plop down her "organization" because she is who she is, when it's incredibly difficult for foreign non-profits with excellent track records doing good, honest work to do the same (and actually, it's no cake walk for a Brazilian to set up a non-profit either). In short, it's nice she's giving Brazil publicity, but I'm curious to see what will happen too.

[Chloe]

You sure Madonna wasn't there to steal somebody's babies?...watch out--she's done it before!

[Ernest Barteldes]

I saw that photo of Paris Hilton on O Globo. They should have told her that Devassa is not like Brahma or Antarctica. It's a powerful microbrew with high
alcohol content (I wrote about it on my Brasilians column a few months back). Too bad that the brand's handlers had the idiotic idea of hiring Ms. Hilton
to promote their brand. I thought it was meant for classy beer snobs, not complete airheads. She should have chugged some cheap cachaca instead.

[Tricia]

"First Woman President" comment not a rumor at all; check out Cabral saying it [in English no less] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErBtlL0QKuE