Brazilian Singer and Actress Preta Gil Dies At 50

Singer and businesswoman, daughter of Gilberto Gil, endured long-term treatment for the cancer in Brazil and the United States.

Preta Gil, a singer, actress, presenter, and businesswoman, died on Sunday at the age of 50 from cancer. Her press office validated this information.

Preta’s father, Gilberto Gil, stated on social media that she died in New York, United States, and that the family is currently completing the bureaucratic processes for her body’s repatriation.

The artist had spent the previous several weeks in the country, where she was receiving experimental therapy for the sickness.

The daughter of singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil, she underwent treatment for nearly two years for bowel cancer, which led to surgeries and tests in Brazil and, ultimately, treatment in the United States.

Preta’s courageous and transparent approach to the disease moved Brazil. “I know I made the right choice in sharing my vulnerabilities and suffering with people. But with my head held high, as it always has been, from the beginning,” she said when she won the O GLOBO “Fad Diferença” Award in 2025 .

Preta Maria Gadelha Gil Moreira was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a form of bowel cancer, in January 2023. After surgery and chemotherapy and radiation treatments, the singer announced that the disease was in remission.

In August 2024, however, she went public to say that the cancer had returned in different parts of her body: two tumors in her lymph nodes, a nodule in her ureter, and metastases in her peritoneum.

Also in August 2024, Preta Gil celebrated her 50th birthday with a party for 700 people at one of Rio’s Port Zone warehouses, featuring performances by the band Psirico and singer Ludmilla. Around the same time, she released her autobiography, “Preta Gil: Os Primeiros 50” (Globo Livros), in which she recounts her battle with cancer and the end of her eight-year marriage to producer Rodrigo Godoy in 2023, after discovering he had cheated on her while she was undergoing cancer treatment.

Preta Gil travelled to the United States in May 2025 for a visit at the Virginia Cancer Institute in Washington, D.C., to see whether she might join a group of patients getting revolutionary therapies.

She then travelled to New York to undergo testing at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, a world-renowned cancer treatment and research facility. Friends and family took turns accompanying the singer in the American metropolis, where she continued to share portions of her act on social media. “Another dose,” she captioned one of the photographs.

While appearing on TV Globo’s “Domingão com Huck,” Preta had shared her idea of continuing her treatment outside of Brazil. “I’m grateful to be able to go through all of this and be treated with dignity. I’m entering a difficult phase. In Brazil, we’ve done everything we could, now my chance for a cure is abroad, and that’s where I’m going,” she said at the time.

Preta Gil released her first album, “Prêt-à-porter,” in 2003, when her father was Minister of Culture in Lula’s first administration, with a repertoire blending pop, MPB, samba, and funk.

She was nude on the cover and in the booklet. Faced with the controversy caused by the photos, she said in an interview with Fernanda Young that the uproar wouldn’t have occurred if she were thin.

From that moment on, Preta became a role model for female self-acceptance, speaking out against aesthetic pressure to be thin or conform to physical standards.

Her second album, “Preta,” came two years later, followed by the tour and DVD “Noite Preta.” In 2010, she hosted the talk show “Vai e vem,” featuring sex talks, on the GNT channel. Her third album, “Sou como sou,” was released in 2012. The following year, she celebrated ten years of her career with the recording of the DVD “Bloco da Preta,” featuring Lulu Santos, Ivete Sangalo, Anitta, Israel Novaes, and Thiaguinho. Her third album, “Todas as cores,” came in 2017.

In 2009, the singer launched Bloco da Preta, which quickly became a hit at Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival and, ten years later, debuted in São Paulo. A bisexual woman, she was seen as a symbol of empowerment by the LGBTQIA+ community.

In parallel with her musical career, Preta participated in soap operas such as “Caminhos do coração” (2007) and “Os Mutantes” (2008), from Record. She also acted in the series “As Cariocas” (2010) and in the soap opera “Cheias de Charme” (2012), from TV Globo; in addition to films such as “Billi Pig” (2011), “Crô em Família” (2018), and “Filho da Mãe” (2022).

In addition to music and soap operas, Preta Gil has pursued a business career. In 2017, she co-founded Mynd with Fátima Pissarra and Carlos Scappini. The organisation focuses on music, influencer marketing, and entertainment.

Preta Gil’s autobiography, “Preta Gil: The First 50,” will be published by Globo Livros in August 2024. “I’ve had many ups and downs; it wasn’t a dream existence. “It was lived with all of the good and bad,” she told GLOBO when it was first released. The book is not chronological; it opens with her narrative of her cancer diagnosis.

She also discusses her childhood in Rio at an upper-class school, her first romantic experiences (with both men and women), the car accident that killed her brother Pedro in 1990, her success as a young producer, and the day she gave herself body and soul by posing naked for the cover of her first album, “Prêt-à-porter,” in 2003.

“With the album, I had a very strong understanding that this wasn’t the world of ‘Preta no País da Tropicália.’ There were people who thought differently than me, who raised their children differently than my parents, with prejudices, moralism, racism, fatphobia, sexism,” she said in the interview. “I had to start dealing with reality, with people who judged me, hated me. It was a blow, but I faced it, I still face it today, and I’ve been winning, I think.”

As a youngster, her godmother, Gal Costa, provided her with a secure haven. “My godmother was always a huge inspiration to me. And, more than my father, I wanted to be behind her,” Preta writes in her memoirs.

“I was quite close to her as a youngster and adolescent. We only saw each other on rare occasions as grownups. However, beginning in 2017, when we recorded the song “Vá se benzer,” we became genuine friends, sharing ideas and calling to check how things were going,” she explained.

Preta, the daughter of Gilberto Gil and Sandra Gadelha, married actor Otávio Muller, with whom she had one kid, Francisco Gadelha Gil Moreira Muller de Sá. Her second marriage was with diver Carlos Henrique de Lima. From 2015 until 2023, she was married to personal trainer Rodrigo Godoy, but the marriage dissolved amid her cancer treatment.

Preta Gil identified as bisexual, never concealed her previous connections with women, and was a champion for LGBTQIA+ rights.

Follow Europeans24 for more updates!