Rio-de-Janeiro - Now its Official: The Goddess of Carnival Gracyanne Barbosa lost her post as Carnival Drum Queen for traditional Mangueira Samba School, to model and samba dancer Renata Santos, former Queen of Drums for Academicos de Santa Cruz. After a successful 10 year partnership with the Samba-School from the west part of Rio-de-Janeiro, the model will lend her grace, charm and personality now to Cartola´s green-and-pink legendary samba-school.



The previous star of Mangueira, Gracyanne Barbosa, remained as the Carnival Queen of Drum for two years and still has not announced her new plans. For Renata Santos, this movement can definitely be considered as an up-grade, since Academicos de Santa Cruz is not a member of the elite Group in Rio-de-Janeiro.



During an interview for “O DIA” newspaper, she stated: “'I know Ivo Meirelles (Mangueira´s President ) for long a time. When he decided to make a complete turn-around at the samba-school, he also decided to invite me to become the Queen of Drums. I had never thought this could happen in my life, but I'm ready. I went through a “Masters degree of 10 years” at Santa Cruz Samba-School and now it my time to join the Special Group. I am very happy”, said the Brazilian Carnival beauty




The official announcement was made in closed feijoada that occurred at the Samba-School’s court, were new board of directors from Mangueira were presented. According to carnival backstage insiders, Gracyanne is already being approached by other traditional samba-schools in Rio-de-Janeiro. If you want to know how these true Goddess of Brazilian Carnival are selected for the Queen of Drum post, read an exclusive article we wrote explaining this process.