Fernando Henrique Cardoso wrote about the death of Elis Regina in a column published in Bound In 1982 – 13 years before the start of his government. He began like this: “Today I don’t want to write about politics. No more packages, extensions, re-elections, and all kinds of nonsense.”
The singer from Rio Grande do Sul had died the previous day at the age of 36. The future president, then a sociologist and professor at the University of the South Pacific, never met her in person. But he kept a little note about her: “Will you have my vote without us meeting?”
Ellis had bid and donated the proceeds to his 1978 Senate campaign. “A campaign with almost no resources,” he wrote. “But those who did come, came that way, driven by generosity.”
Fernando Henrique Cardoso was unable to go to the show. “I was immersed in the daily life of the campaign, and who knows where in enormous São Paulo.” He sent a booklet of interviews to the press. He was left “bitter, now forever, at the lack of embrace and appreciation.”
Read the full text below, part of Section 105 Columns of Great Influence, which recalls the records that made history in Bound. This initiative comes within the framework of the celebrations of the 105th anniversary of the founding of the newspaper in February 2026.
Ellis Regina (1/21/1982)
Today I don’t want to write about politics. No more packages, extensions, re-elections, and all kinds of nonsense. There are days when, out of respect for honest feelings, you cannot waste time with so much rubbish, so much dishonesty, so much audacity from scoundrels who make headlines in order to better serve the authority by preserving the country.
Ellis Regina died.
I couldn’t meet her in person. I admired her from afar, like everyone else. One time I received a letter from her saying: “Professor, will you take my vote without us meeting?” That was the day I made a “show” and donated the proceeds to help with the election campaign. Drive with almost no resources. But those who came did so in a spirit of generosity.
I couldn’t even go to the “show.” I was immersed in the daily life of the campaign, and who knows where I was in this vast São Paulo. She sent Ellis a pamphlet of newspaper interviews. I have become bitter, now and forever, from the lack of embrace and appreciation. Years later, we talked on the radio. I asked him a general question about his involvement in politics and, embarrassed, I remembered my religion: that hug was missing.
Today is sad. Ellis Regina was not interested in politics in the vulgar sense. She was, like few others, an interpreter of the feelings that exist on the streets and within each of us. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a “partisan.” Of course he had left. He took sides. In all: just listen to his interviews. She knew she was shy, and thought she was ugly; She was young. And in that chest, in that voice, there was so much emotion. Of the basic things; That character. In the corner, she did not explode in anger at the unjust regime: she did not need to. It was enough for him to be able to feel the simplest emotions, without saying anything, to say everything.
He appears to have died in despair. Because I don’t know, and out of respect, it’s better not to guess. He died sad. Death is always sad. He probably had an open book of personal accounts.
But she left behind hope: a country that had produced, despite all the villainy that prevailed there, a woman capable of being a message, a message that would be picked up by millions of people, without any demagoguery and not needing a speech so that everyone would feel that she was, yes, part of real politics, of those who want to change everything so that each individual’s success is not always dotted with sadness, and is not lost.
I’m crying today because of the hugs I didn’t give. I cry for the suffering that spread through the streets of São Paulo, and I say goodbye to those who triumphed without finding peace. But I wipe away the tears with the certainty that the material of this type of artist is the framework of a world that, despite everything, will continue to be built.