Marcelo Ribeiro, former child actor who starred alongside Xuxa Meneghel in Amor Estranho Amor (1982), found the presenter again after 40 years. They faced each other to settle accounts. The artist revealed that he had lost his job due to the film’s negative impact. “I suffered,” he lamented.
The meeting was featured in the second episode of Xuxa, O Documentário, available this Thursday (20) on Globoplay. The production brings important moments in the career and personal life of Sasha Meneghel’s mother.
Ribeiro and Xuxa met again in a dark room where they could watch clips from the film, which drew criticism for an erotic scene between the artist and the actor, who was only 11 at the time.
“Thank you for agreeing to be here, that we can see you,” said the blonde. “I appreciate the opportunity, I’ve waited too long. I think that because of the circumstances, because of everything we’ve been through, all the stories of what was true and what wasn’t, we owed this reunion. We owed it to each other to close this cycle, start a new one or not, who knows,” agreed Ribeiro
Xuxa, who was accused of pedophilia for appearing nude in the scene with a minor, regretted that people ignored the film’s central theme and attacked her for playing only one character:
It seemed that the film didn’t exist anymore, that the film was mine, that it was my biography, that I did it [na vida real]. The thing behind it that you wanted to talk about, namely child prostitution, which still exists in Brazil today, nobody talked about anymore.
“Actually, the film was never controversial, it was controversial,” said Ribeiro. “One thing that shocked me a lot was the way the distributors started selling the film. They said: ‘Come and see what Xuxa is doing with her little ones’. That was hard, that had nothing to do with it,” the blonde continued.
The actor then commented on how his performance alongside Xuxa in the 1982 production hurt his career. “Unfortunately, it’s come to all this controversy that has thrown me out of the loop. My picture would be negatively associated with his name. I suffered. They smothered me, put me in a cauldron and that was it.”
“All the people who said no to me weren’t against Marcelo Ribeiro, they shouldn’t confront Xuxa.
Xuxa then said that she understood her colleague’s situation and regretted that he received so many negatives because of the film:
I’m really sorry that you didn’t have the opportunity to further develop as an actor. Your work is so beautiful. I would love for people to see the film and I want you to have that opportunity so you can at least come full circle.