Carnival: Tati Minerato, drum queen, says that few believe she has samba in her step

Model Tati Minerato, 35, will make a dream come true this year. She debuts as drum queen of a samba school in the elite of Rio’s Carnival, with a detail that makes her a little anxious: Porto da Pedra, her group, is the first to parade, and on the first day — Sunday, 11 of February.

She says she’s prepared to rock (“costume ready and everything planned”), although many people don’t believe that. Tati says that they don’t have faith in her resourcefulness as a passista because she is blonde, with green eyes, she escapes the stereotype still linked, in a way, to women with samba skills. “I have fun when people come up and say ‘and don’t you really samba?’. I’m a drum queen and I’ve also been a muse at several schools, but what I really am is a dancer”, she says.

Granddaughter of Italians and daughter of a former dancer, she learned to samba from a very early age and, at the age of 12, joined the children’s wing of Gaviões da Fiel. She didn’t come out anymore. In Rio and São Paulo she has also paraded for Águia de Ouro and Vila Isabel. She has been at Porto da Pedra for three years, and this will be her first parade for the school in the Special Group.

Tati went through a scare during the pandemic and guarantees that the episode made her change the way she sees life. “I’m no longer looking for the perfect body,” she says. In 2020, she had a serious infection, which almost turned into septicemia, when changing her silicone implants (from 500 ml to 650 ml) and liposuction.

“There was a hole in my breasts and I had to stay in a hospital for weeks. I didn’t go to the ICU, thanks to the doctors who were quick and precise with the medication, but I was very afraid of dying.”

The businesswoman also said that after the scare, it still took her 11 months to fully recover. “I never did anything again. We know that there are good doctors in this area of ​​aesthetics, but I confess that I was a little scared of surgeries. Today, I worry about taking care of my body in a lighter and more relaxed way.”