Pabllo Vittar went into 2020 excited to perform around the world during Pride Month, where she would be able to celebrate queerness in all its forms with her LGBTQ fans. But thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, many of those plans were cancelled, leaving many wondering if Pride Month would still even take place in 2020.
But the Brazilian drag phenomenon, like many other Pride organizations, decided to take matters into her own hands. On Sunday, June 28, Vittar is teaming up with Plus1 to put on her very own Pride event, “Pride with Pabllo & Friends.” Hosted on the singer’s YouTube channel, the event will feature stars like Big Freedia, Diplo, Lauren Jauregui, Rina Sawayama, Sofi Tukker, Tove Lo and many more, all helping raise money for The Trevor Project.
Billboard chatted with Vittar ahead of her big day about putting together a digital festival, working with her friends, and the importance of supporting queer people during Pride Month.
How are you handling month three of being in quarantine?
Well, it’s ok so far! Trying to get used to the mood changing and everything around the lockdown, right? I try to keep myself busy working out, writing some new songs and creating as much as I can. And also, on the bad days, I don’t push myself too hard and live the lazy days as they should be lived!
With Pride festivals around the world cancelled, you are throwing your very own Pride celebration online. How did this opportunity come about for you?
All the live streaming concerts are huge in Brazil right now and we use that time to entertain everyone who is at home and also to create awareness and raise money and donations for the ones in need! In the current global situation there’s no better way to celebrate Pride, so I teamed up with a bunch of great artists that I love to do that! It’s gonna be amazing.
You have an incredible lineup for Sunday — what was the process of getting your friends involved like? Whose set are you most excited to see?
It took a couple of weeks to get in touch to everyone but me and my team worked hard and all the artists involved were super into it! It’s gonna be huge and super fun, I can promise you that! And now, talking about the performances, I am super excited to see all of them, there are some friends on the lineup that I’ve never seen live so I am looking forward to see it!
I love that the event is also supporting The Trevor Project to help out their crisis intervention and suicide prevention initiatives. What advice do you have for the LGBTQ community about finding ways to support organizations like this?
You don’t have to pressure yourself to do anything huge, there is a lot ways to support other people on the daily basis! Listen to someone that needs to talk about an issue, saying a nice “good morning” with a true smile can change the day of someone or stand up when you see any kind of prejudice or racism situation are some of the things that are easy and we need to do them! If you can, of course, donating and engaging with campaigns will help a lot, but you know, with small actions everyday we can change a lot!
Why is it important to keep the celebration of Pride going this year, even from lockdown?
Because representation still matters. We’re here and we’re queer. Even now we need to have our community support for one another especially with lockdown. We need to celebrate how far we’ve come and know that there’s still work to be done until we all have equal rights. Black, trans, doesn’t matter — ALL of us!
