Jeff, Luiz, Rafael: the cruel fame that comes to actors only through a tragic death

Every actor who does television wants to have a taste of fame. Whether as validation of your talent or mere vanity.

Some make the news, but for an unwanted reason. They gain posthumous fame caused by a dramatic death.

Jeff Machado has just joined the celebrity police chronicle. He makes the news on the news not for a relevant job, but for the mysterious disappearance and the dramatic outcome of the case.

His body was in a trunk that belonged to him, buried two meters deep, under concrete, four months after his disappearance.

Everything points to a murder committed by someone who pretended to be a friend and took money from the artist with the false promise of including him in the main cast of some soap opera.

Disappointed in the dream of achieving TV stardom, Jeff fell for the scam that claimed so many lives. Now he will be remembered only for his participation in ‘Reis’, by Record, and for covering up the crime. He died without achieving the desired success.

In September 2021, the news highlighted the death of Luiz Carlos Araújo, seen as a supporting actor in SBT soap operas such as ‘Carinha de Anjo’ and ‘Cúmplices de um Resgate’.

The actor was found dead in his apartment in central São Paulo, with his head covered in a plastic bag.

The strange circumstances have produced the suspicion of murder and even the action of a hypothetical serial killer of homosexuals.

The artist with a solid academic background and dedicated to the arts for decades did not get the desired public recognition in his lifetime. He has become famous in the worst way.

His career battle has been clouded by speculation about his early and initially incomprehensible death.

The alleged conundrum was concluded after months of investigation. “The association of antidepressants, cocaine and alcohol, with the consequent lowering of the level of consciousness, associated with childbirth were the causes of (accidental) death”, highlighted the report of the IML (Instituto Médico Legal).

Another episode of deplorable lurid visibility happened to Rafael Miguel, the ‘Chiquititas’ actor murdered with his father and mother.

The triple homicide committed by his girlfriend’s father made the young artist remember in the media after four years without an important role in television dramas, a period in which the press ignored him.

Police programs have exploited the tragedy to exhaustion. The hunt for the suspect – arrested only in May 2022 – produced weeks of news until ratings began to drop and, as always happens, the agenda was replaced by other gory dramas.

The press in general – and I include this blog in the critique – tends to impose an overdose of news on the most followed group of artists (generally those on Globo or highlighted on social networks).

Those considered secondary, such as the aforementioned Jeff Machado, Luiz Carlos Araújo and Rafael Miguel, do not get material to screen their work. They are not considered engaged.

Unfairly, the image of these sidekicks is almost always popularized only with scandal, major bankruptcy, or a high-impact death.

Explicit distortion of this media addicted to “likes” and Ibope points and an audience eager for macabre stories to distract themselves. To paraphrase Hamlet, there is something poor in the realm of the Brazilian press.

Source: Terra