What happened to “Mona” AKA Brazilian Michelle? The transsexual talk show guest from the 1990’s

Michelle Tarrio on an episode of Jenny Jones in 1992

You may remember a beautiful yet hard to understand transsexual named Mona who appeared on your television screens on some of the most popular talk shows of the 1990’s? What happened to the beautiful transsexual in the age before social media?

Born Michelle S Tarrio in Lisbon, Portugal she immigrated to New York, USA where she worked as a prostitute beginning at age 16. As detailed on her episode of Taxicab Confessions, at age 17 she began dating an Italian mobster for six years. A volitile relationship, the pair dated until she was 23-years old. The mobster was married to a woman and had children. Originally planning to retaliate against the mobster (for threatening to inform police of a prostitution ring ran by Michelle) by telling his wife of his affair with a transsexual prostitute, Tarrio was a hit by her boyfriend who had another man shoot her in the back. Michelle survived and recovered in the hospital for two months before going back to her parents home to continue recovering.

Better known by the names Mona or Brazilian Michelle, she became known to the general public for her appearances as a talk show guest (along with other famous “talk-show transsexuals” like Silver and Exotica) on shows such as Donahue and Jenny Jones. As mentioned above, Tarrio also made an appearance on one episode of Taxicab Confessions where she advised against transgender women getting sex reassignment surgery as she “saw some of her other transgender friends “go crazy” after getting the surgery” because they couldn’t achieve an orgasm or penetrate a male. “It’s just a dry hole” says Michelle.

Michelle also made a brief appearance in the 1996 documentary film “Mirror, Mirror” about the life and death of transgender madam and performer Consuela Cosmetic.

Credit: Michelle S Tarrio on Facebook

After her last known media appearance, Tarrio worked in the hair and makeup industry for some years as an independent contractor. She still performed at gay bars and clubs as shown in the only video posted to her self-titled YouTube channel. 

Credit: Michelle S Tarrio on Facebook

Throughout the years in attempts to, like many transgender women do, maintain her appearance, Michelle underwent cosmetic filler to give her body curvature and add shape to her face. It’s currently unknown if the silicone was medical or non-medical grade, but it caused her problems. As she lay on a surgery table getting the silicone removed, she passed away on May 6, 2022 in New York from complications of the surgery. 

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