Jean Wyllys | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Wyllys in 2015 | |
| Federal Deputy forRio de Janeiro | |
| In office 1 February 2011 – 31 January 2019 | |
| Succeeded by | David Miranda |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jean Wyllys de Matos Santos (1974-03-10)10 March 1974 (age 51) Alagoinhas,Bahia, Brazil |
| Political party | PT (2021–present) |
| Other political affiliations | PSOL (2009–21) |
| Website | www |
Jean Wyllys de Matos Santos (Brazilian Portuguese:[ʒeˈɐ̃ˈwilizdʒiˈmatusˈsɐ̃tus]; born 10 March 1974) is a Brazilian lecturer, journalist and politician who rose to fame after winning thefifth season ofBig Brother Brasil. He was also notable as being Brazil's second openly gay member of parliament and the first congressman to be a gay-rights activist.[1][a] He has been compared toHarvey Milk for his work.[1] In 2019, citing death threats, he resigned from his seat in Congress.[3]
Wyllys was born inAlagoinhas, in the northeastern state ofBahia, one of seven children.[1] His mother was a washerwoman and his father a car painter who suffered from alcoholism.[1] Wyllys attended a boarding school, which gave him the opportunity to get a better education than the average child in his village. Wyllys later moved toSalvador and obtained his bachelor's degree in journalism at theFederal University of Bahia.[1] He first rose to fame after becoming the finalist in the Brazilian reality television show,Big Brother Brasil in its fifth season in 2005. He was the first openly gay participant in the show, which caused controversy amongst fans and participants alike. Wyllys described his victory as being of "great political relevance [...] I said I was a homosexual and I still won the TV show in a country that ishomophobic."[1]
In 2010 Wyllys was elected a federal member ofthe Brazilian Congress, representing theSocialism and Freedom party, with an average of 13,000 votes.[4] His election was only possible, considering the number of votes he had in 2010 elections, through the so-called "voto de legenda" (party vote), a constitutional mechanism that allows candidates who don't have a large number of votes to be elected through votes of another highly voted candidate of the same party.[5] In Wyllys's case, the votes of another congressman ofSocialism and Liberty Party, Chico Alencar, who was one of the most voted inRio de Janeiro, helped in his election. Upon occupying a seat in Congress, Wyllys brought hisLGBT movement activism to the scene. He started working on his political platform, which was primarily focused on the fight forLGBT rights. In so doing, he ended up confronting prominent Brazilian right-wing figures, such as pastorSilas Malafaia, a famous televangelist and national president of theAssembly of God Churches, andJair Bolsonaro, a congressman (later elected president) who became Wyllys's nemesis in the Brazilian Congress. Wyllys at one point spat at congressman Bolsonaro during the voting of PresidentDilma Rousseff'simpeachment.[6] In Congress, Wyllys proposed three controversial pieces of legislation, including the regulation of prostitution, the legalization and government regulation of marijuana production, and the government financing ofsex reassignment surgeries andhormonal treatment fortransgender teenagers and adults.[7][8][9][10]
Wyllys' defense ofminority rights and his existence as anopenly gay Congress member and human rights activist have made him a public enemy of conservative political forces inBrazil. Living in a country with such a high rate of homophobic crimes as Brazil,[11] Wyllys began to receivedeath threats. These became more recurrent after his political enemies began a campaign against him by posting and sharing in social media, including Facebook, images with quotes attributed to him, portraying him as being openly a paedophile.[12] Among other remarks falsely attributed to him was one which stated that the Bible was "a joke" and that Christians and Bible followers were "clowns." This was widely circulated. Nevertheless, people in social networks still shared them, strengthening the ongoing hate campaign against Wyllys. To repair his image damaged by the orchestrated campaign, he created a section on his official webpage where he refutes all the quotes attributed to him.[13] Although his political image in the public sphere had been tarnished by the slanderous campaign, Wyllys ran for congress once again in 2014 and kept his seat in parliament with more than 100,000 votes, receiving the seventh most votes among representatives from Rio de Janeiro.[14]
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In 2015, it was announced that Brazilian independent filmmakers were planning to produce a documentary about Wyllys's political career and activism. The documentary was released in 2016 with the title "Entre os Homens de Bem" (Among Virtuous Men). The documentary focuses on the political arena in Brazil and addresses topics such asgay marriage and LGBT rights, and features Wyllys and his conservative opponents. In that same year, Wyllys was included in the "Top 50 global personalities with an outstanding commitment to diversity" list.[15]
Wyllys was re-elected to a third term as a member of Congress in the2018 election. However, the campaign took a toll on him. His close friend, Rio de Janeiro city councillorMarielle Franco, was fatally shot in March 2018. In January 2019, just days before the February 1 swearing-in of the56th Congress, Wyllys released a note from overseas stating that he would not return to Brazil due to alleged death threats and that he would not assume his position as congressman. He told theFolha de São Paulo newspaper that he did not want to live four years under close security watch.[16] He was replaced in the Chamber of Deputies byDavid Miranda.[17] Soon after news of Wyllys' resignation broke, President Bolsonaro reacted on Twitter, by posting the phrase "Great day" followed by a "thumbs-up" emoji. His son,Carlos Bolsonaro, also tweeted: "Godspeed and be happy".[16]
As of 2022, Wyllys is performing doctoral research on “fake news” at theUniversity of Barcelona.[18] Wyllys returned to Brazil for the first time in July 2023.[19] In May 2024, Wyllys called for Lula to not run for a fourth term in 2026, instead endorsingSimone Tebet as a potential successor.[20]
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