In 1991, Claudia Raya spoke openly about the beginning of her friendship with Fernando Collor de Mello in an interview with the Kultura TV program Roda Viva. At the time, the actress said that they met when she was touring for a performance of “Gatão de Estimação” in Maceio. Collor and his then-wife Rosan Malta introduced themselves as admirers of Claudia Raya’s work and went to meet her backstage.

At the time, Raya recalls, Collor was the federal candidate for Alagoas, and she insisted on supporting his candidacy. With the victory in the elections, the artist recalled that Collor began to consider her a “rabbit’s foot”, that is, a talisman.

“He was a candidate for federal deputies. I thanked them for being in the hall, I already knew him from the newspaper, I thought he was an interesting politician, and they went to the dressing room to greet me, and I said to him: “You will win as a federal deputy.” It was the beginning of our friendship. He won, he thought I was his rabbit’s foot, that I should be on his side, and we became very good friends,” he announced.

In that interview, the actress called Collor a good-natured person and that “no one can deny it.” “AS WELL ASin an absolutely decisive person, very demanding of himself,” he said.

campaign video

The 1989 elections were important for Brazilian democracy as they marked the resumption of elections by popular vote after 25 years of military dictatorship and the killing of hundreds of opponents by the military.

In this scenario, the strongest names in Planalto were Kollor and Lula – the Alagoan won with 55% of the valid votes in a campaign heavily marked by television – TV Globo’s biased publication in favor of Collor in the debate is the most famous episode. Decades later, a PT member accused a carioca radio station of doing a “rut” to hurt him. globe, including already apologized for the episode.

But this campaign also involved several celebrities, such as Claudia Raya, who stood out for her enthusiasm and belief in Alagoas. The actress even starred in commercials in which she urged Brazilians to go vote as she, “in green and yellow, full of faith”, vote “correctly, vote for Collor.”

“I’m going to vote for the president for the first time, like most Brazilians. And you won’t miss this opportunity, right? booth take your ballot like this and vote right, vote to win, score to win, 20 Collor. Vote like me, vote Collor,” said the actress in the campaign.

Repentance

Three years after winning the election Fernando Collor de Mello was removed from office. The then president was implicated in several corruption scandals, in addition to the confiscation of Brazilians’ savings, which brought crowds of painted faces to the streets demanding his impeachment.

When she was at Roda Viva in 1991, Claudia Raia was asked what she thought of the then president’s attitude and pointed out that “it was a chaotic situation.” According to her, her income was also withheld, and she did not even have money to buy cigarettes.

“O [meu] money stuck, I didn’t have money to buy cigarettes. I remember I started the soap opera “Rainha da Sukata” and Gloria Menezes didn’t have a dime either, so we collected what we had, bought a pack, and we had ten cigarettes each. It was a chaotic situation, but I think that’s part of it, I would also feel really bad if my money wasn’t stuck, if everyone else was stuck, mine would be stuck too,” he said at the time.

Since then, Claudia Raya spoke of her participation in the 1989 elections, when she supported the campaign against Lula and in favor of Collor, always with regret.. In several interviews, the actress said that today she would not even support her mother, Odette Motta Raya, who passed away in March 2019..

“This process was very painful and I hope it never happens again. I just definitely think politics and art are incompatible,” she told Rádio Cultura FM in 2021.

“I believed that Fernando Collor was the guy who would change Brazil, me and everyone else, but that was not the case,” he continued. “And I think that today Brazil is going through a split, and many places in the world are also going through this split. And I think it’s very bad, very harmful. This is a hate campaign,” he added.

Last month, the artist again commented on this issue in an interview with JP magazine and said that she was not going to “ever go through anything like what she experienced at that time.”

“What I went through with Fernando Collor, I don’t want to go through again. Even if my mother reincarnated and ran for president, I would not campaign for her,” he said.

fake news

Due to her closeness to Fernando Collor de Mello, Claudia Raya became known as the mistress of the Alagoan politician. The fake news concocted with her name at the time drove her to the bottom.

In this case Raya put an end to it marriage to Alexander Frotaand rumors arose of her alleged involvement with the “marajah hunter”.

“They said I had sex with Collor in the Casa da Dinda pantry,” the artist said, referring to the former president’s family residence in Brasilia.

Raya recalled this gossip in her memoir Semper Raia um Novo Dia (HarperCollins Brasil), written by journalist Rosana Hermann. The celebrity recalled how she was at Globo Studios and received a personal call from Collor asking for help amid impeachment calls, but she refused. According to him, this episode marked the end of their friendship.

In addition to being identified as Collor’s lover, gossip at the time said she would have contracted HIV because the former president “was very thin and people accused me of having an affair with him”.

“Then I had an empty theater, I had to be on the cover of a magazine with a negative result. HIV. I paid the price for the wrong choice, with the wrong person.”