Journalist, author of the books Abuso — A Cultura do Estupro no Brasil (2020) and Agressão — A Escalada da Violência Doméstica no Brasil (2025), and TV host, Ana Paula Araújo was born in Rio de Janeiro, in São Cristóvão, but was raised in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. During her childhood, she would always come to Rio for vacations — stays at an aunt's house in Vila da Penha, trips to Ramos, beaches in Saquarema and Rio das Ostras. Until the day she came back at eighteen, to stay.
In Juiz de Fora, he hosted a music program on a local radio station late at night, without his parents knowing. When he landed back in Rio, he brought in his baggage the discipline and the voice trained at the late-night microphone. He managed to land two jobs at the same time — mornings at Rádio Globo, afternoons at TV Manchete — and went to live in Flamengo, in São Conrado, and in Leblon. With each move, a new piece of the city revealed itself.
Before she became the Globo anchor that all of Brazil knows, she was a reporter who saw Rio from end to end, giving a voice to people who rarely appeared on television. At Rádio Globo, Ana Paula inherited the role of a veteran reporter who had retired: for two years, she would arrive early to grab the Amarelinho (the news-gathering car) and head straight for the West Zone. Bangu, Campo Grande, Santa Cruz. She went door to door, talked with residents, discovered the problems of each neighborhood. This daily immersion in the city's outskirts shaped her outlook.
Then came RJTV, Bom Dia Rio, and Bom Dia Brasil. Carnival and New Year's Eve coverage. And, in November 2010, the coverage that marked his career and Rio's recent history: the occupation of the Complexo do Alemão. It was about ten uninterrupted hours on air, reporting in real time. The coverage earned the Globo team the first International Emmy for journalism.
But the experience had a huge impact on the journalist. "I think it's extremely possible to put an end to violence in Rio de Janeiro, very possible indeed," she says. She knows the wish sounds utopian, but she insists on it with the stubbornness of someone who has seen, firsthand, that the city can be different, even having witnessed, in 2025, a new police operation in Complexo do Alemão that turned into a violent massacre.
Away from the screens, Ana Paula discovered another Rio — the Rio of the body in motion. Her favorite place to run is the Jardim Botânico, where she's been a member for more than twenty years, ever since she got pregnant with her daughter Melissa. There, the ground is packed dirt, the heat eases up, and there are stretches where it feels like someone turned on the air conditioning under the trees.
She also loves the streets of old Rio — Gonçalves Dias, Rua do Ouvidor — the Confeitaria Colombo, the Cavé and, above all, the Theatro Municipal. Whatever's on at the Municipal, she goes. For a while, she attended a conducting course on Saturdays at the Escola Villa-Lobos and, from there, would go eat at the Colombo. If she could choose a piece to play on the stage of the Municipal, she would choose Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4.
The piano, incidentally, has never left the scene. Ana Paula still takes lessons every week, playing at her teacher's end-of-year recitals, at friends' parties, and at literary soirées.
For Ana Paula, what defines Rio de Janeiro is not the landscape — or not only that. "What unifies Rio de Janeiro is the carioca personality, the way of being, the way of relating to others." The sunny, welcoming, playful way. The energy that runs from the samba school's rehearsal space to the beaches of the Zona Sul. Perhaps that's why she believes it's so important to know the book Cidade Partida, by journalist Zuenir Ventura. But also to enjoy the animated film Rio, for showing the sunny, joyful side that violence can't erase. And because the animals in the film, she says, really do look just like cariocas.
Ana Paula carries three wishes that don't fit into a single report: bury all the electrical wiring and the makeshift rigs on the poles, solve the city's flooding structurally (especially given extreme weather events), and bring the subway to many more neighborhoods, so that Rio can truly become integrated and people can stop depending on cars to get across it.
