VIDEO: Brazilian Country Singer Juliano Cezar Dies On Stage During Concert
In the early hours of New Year’s Eve during a concert in Uniflor, Paraná, Brazil, fans were horrified to watch their beloved sertanejo star, Juliano Cezar, collapse on stage. Audience footage shows the singer performing his set as usual until he started to tug at his shirt collar and eventually collapse. Some in the crowd cheered, not realizing the star was having a medical crisis. Others gasped. A bandmate quickly closed the curtains on what would be Cezar’s last performance. The 59-year-old singer was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead from sudden cardiac arrest.
Those closest to Cezar suspect that his use of energy drinks, passion for performing and history of heart disease and hypertension are what triggered the fatal cardiac episode.
Fan footage captures the last minutes of his life, during which he showed few signs of distress before he collapsed.
According to Mauro Vasconcelos, Cezar’s manager of 25 years, Cezar was performing his third show in a row. Vasconcelos believes that Cezar overexerted himself by fueling countless hours of performance to a full house with the use of energy drinks.
Cezar has long been a household name in Brazil since he started his career as a rodeo rider in 1985 and went on to record his own music. A true caballero, Cezar grew up in the countryside of Brazil and learned the family trade of farming their own land. One day, he decided to take the risk and move to the city of São Paulo and record country music. Throughout his musical career, he’s released a dozen albums and grown a large fanbase of fellow countrymen and women. He was on tour in a rural part of Brazil when he suffered his fatal heart attack.
Cezar is seen tugging at his shirt collar before he starts to keel over.
He grabs for a microphone stand to lean on, and eventually reaches for a fellow bandmate to lean on but to no avail. Cezar lunged forward as he collapsed onto the stage. At first, everybody is confused. Footage captures the majority of the audience falling quiet while few others cheered, still confused about what was going on. After about 15 seconds of confusion, a bandmate decides to close the curtains to maintain some privacy during the trauma.
Cezar was rushed to a hospital where doctors attempted to restart his heart for over an hour and a half.
Due to the nature of where the concert took place, the luxuries of an ambulance and medical personnel were not immediately available, leaving few options for the doctors who would ultimately treat Cezar. He was rushed to a local hospital in a police vehicle. Doctor Gustavo Felipe Correa Mendes said that it had been over 20 minutes since the singer collapsed on stage to when he was able to be treated, adding to what he said was another obstacle to his treatment. “When he got here, everything was done, but he was already in an advanced state of cardiac arrest,” Dr. Correa Mendes said of the incident.
Cezar’s body was brought to his hometown in Passos, Minas Gerais for a wake the following day.
In a social media post, the administrator of his account announced that there would be two wakes for Cezar. One took place in Ribeirão Preto, the “city where the singer lived for over 25 years” on the same day of his death. The following day, his body was transferred to his hometown in Passos, Minas Gerais where he was “veiled and buried.” Both wakes were open to the public.
“One of the great ironies of life is that most of the time we never know when it will be the last time we will do anything!” one of his bandmates shared to social media in Portuguese. “Ahhh if we had known it would be the last soundcheck, we would have taken longer, should have laughed, had less to do with little things, given more value to the goals we have achieved than we have not yet achieved, perhaps not, but always better to see the glass half full than half empty.
And so the end of this story comes, but life always goes on, and new stories and people will come.
It was an unparalleled pleasure to be with you until one day guys.”
During his career, Cezar was once nominated to the Latin Grammys. He is survived by his wife and had no children.
