In eight months, the actor was only in Portugal for five days.

11/15/2023 • 01 h 30
Vanessa Fidalgo

Family problems, distance from family and accidents during the filming of “A Rainha do Sul” made 2023 particularly difficult for Pêpê Rapazote, 53 years old.

The actor spent eight months in Colombia to record the third season of the series, and during that time he came to Portugal for only “five days”, as he admitted on the “Júlia” SIC program. The distance had detrimental effects: “It really threw me off balance,” he admitted to presenter Julia Pinheiro.

But this was not the only problem he had to face. “I was there hurting (…) I was training five days a week, more Krav Maga, running, swimming, doing everything,” he recalls. “I played a lot of dangerous roles and I broke a rib while doing fight scenes that I wasn’t supposed to do. (…) I broke my back and couldn’t get treatment there. I decided to come to Lisbon for five days,” he added. “No one wanted me.” “I came, but I came.”

“While I was traveling here, my father had a stroke. So, I got off the plane and my father was in the hospital. Just before I left, my mother had a stroke in my arm,” he revealed.

“Those eight-and-a-half months of one visit here for my back treatment was terrible for my immediate family,” he admitted. Recall that the actor has been married to fellow actress Mafalda Vilhena for more than two decades. They are both parents to Leonor, 14, and Julia, 18.