The Duality of Anitta

The Brazilian pop star is preparing to drop her next album, and grappling with what that means for the character she created. Anitta is — quite literally— surrounded by icons. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon at her home in Rio de Janeiro, she glows amid a backdrop of Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, and James Brown portraits. A painting of her 2019 trilingual album Kisses, which features the singer locking lips with her clone, and a kaleidoscopic rainbow mural forms a halo around the singer’s honeyed hair. It’s this artistic shrine of fan gifts that fosters creativity for the singer — a pop star’s paradise, but not exactly a place for peace.

“I got this house seven years ago, and seven years ago I was a workaholic,” she recalls. It’s the antithesis of “a chill house,” as she puts it, the kind of space that recalls her duties as an artist. “Nowadays, I am looking for a house that feels less ‘Anitta.’” A home that makes her feel like a “normal” person, like her property in Miami, which is stripped of anything to do with her career with one exception: a coveted velvet purse with gold detailing that belonged to her musical forebear, Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda. More than ever, Anitta, the most influential pop star in Brazil with more than 7 billion views on YouTube, 64 million followers on Instagram and 22 million followers on TikTok, is trying to navigate the divide between her maximalist pop persona — a self-assured powerhouse who radiates energy and unabashedly embraces her sexuality — and the woman who has carefully cultivated that image.

This afternoon, for a day of back-to-back interviews, the 30-year-old megastar leans more toward her on-stage alter-ego, sporting full glam — glossy lips, full brows, an off-the-shoulder mesh halter top and gold triangle hoops. She smooths and flips her hair with the confidence of the “Queen of Brazilian Pop” (which she has, in fact, been deemed). But Larissa de Macedo Machado, the more subdued woman behind Anitta, is a sweet, shy, chronic overthinker, who grapples with insecurity. A minimalist who “can literally wear the same shit forever.” (Picture her tucked away on an island vacation with no paparazzi: Her suitcase will contain one pair of shoes, one pair of sweatpants, one hoodie, one pair of pajamas and a bikini.)