Janaína Barbosa

Janaína Barbosa was born in São Paulo in 1978. Before she became known on television she worked as a dancer and a theatre producer, and she was a muse of the samba school Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel. CNN Brasil described her as a journalist, actress and presenter.

In 2001 Barbosa became co-presenter of TV Fama, the celebrity news and interview programme of the RedeTV! network, alongside Nelson Rubens. The role gave her national recognition. She left the programme in 2002 and was replaced by Luísa Mell, who stayed until 2006.

After TV Fama she pursued acting and appeared in the TV Globo series Casos e Acasos in 2008.

In later years she stepped away from television. She earned a degree in psychology and practised as a psychoanalyst in her own consulting room, and she also collaborated with a laboratory and the university hospital of the University of São Paulo.

Barbosa began a relationship with the presenter Otávio Mesquita in 2001, and they married in 2002. The wedding was attended by celebrities including Luciana Gimenez and Roberto Justus and appeared on the cover of Caras magazine. The marriage ended in 2007.

In 2010 she married the businessman Felipe Faria, grandson of Aloysio de Andrade Faria, founder of Banco Alfa, in a ceremony by the sea on the island of Comandatuba in Bahia. They had two sons, Bernardo and Frederico. According to Mesquita, the couple were no longer together at the time of her death.

Janaína Barbosa died in São Paulo on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, at the age of 48. Her former husband Otávio Mesquita confirmed the news to Quem, CNN Brasil and other outlets on 4 November, saying he had learned of it the day before and did not know the cause. "She was a very upright person. I have respect for her," he told g1.

Her friend Camila Avesani told g1 that she had died of anaphylactic shock, an extreme reaction after a change in a medication she took occasionally. Her wake was held in São Paulo on the afternoon of 4 November and was restricted to family and close friends.

Tributes came from Ticiane Pinheiro, who remembered "a lovely girl who always radiated light and warmth wherever she went", from Mari Saade and from her friend Marina Mantega.

Barbosa is remembered as one of the faces of TV Fama in its early years, one of the longest running entertainment programmes on Brazilian television, and as a figure of São Paulo celebrity life in the 2000s. Her later move into psychology and psychoanalysis, away from the cameras, was noted in the coverage of her death.