Joana Prado

Joana Prado Belfort (born June 22, 1976) is a Brazilian-American businesswoman and former model.

Early life
Prado was born in São Paulo, daughter of engineer Jair Prado and Mercedes Prado and sister of Tiago Prado. While she was studying administration and foreign trade in college, she was model and girl advertising for brands like 775, Sexy Machine, and M.Officer. 

She holds dual Brazilian and American citizenship.

Career
Joana worked as a model and during this period she also studied business administration with an emphasis on foreign trade. She was advertising girl of some brands like: 775, Sexy Machine, M.Officer and others. She began working on TV as a stage assistant for Luciano Huck's Program H, at Rede Bandeirantes, later creating a character called Feiticeira ("Sorceress"), which made her known worldwide.

At first, Joana had many difficulties in accepting the character, due to the conservative education she had from her parents. Because of this, she decided to stop her university graduation and take theater classes with Beto Silveira, in order to understand and be able to incorporate the character, who later became Brazil's greatest sex symbol in the 90's.

She started to have a sports part on a TV show, it was called "In Shape with Feiticeira" on TV Bandeirantes, where she interviewed athletes of various modalities about their daily training and curiosities.

At the same time she participated in a radio show called Pânico, being part of the Radio Broadcasting Staff. Joana posed three times for the Brazilian Playboy magazine, with the first time being the most sold issue ever (1,234,288 copies).

With the absolute success of the character, she began to carry out numerous advertising campaigns.

In March 2002 she left TV Bandeirantes and went to SBT, where she participated in the second edition of reality show "The House of Artists". Inside the reality she re-established her relationship with the MMA fighter Vitor Belfort, with whom she had already dated for 7 months in the year 2000. Joana finished fourth overall in the show.

After leaving the program Joana dedicated a year of her life to study radio, communication and television; and in 2003 she was hired by RecordTV to join the Note & Anote program as a reporter, where she worked for two years until her first son, Davi, was born.

In 2006 she returned to work on TV Bandeirantes, but this time as a reporter in the Pra Valer show, by Claudete Troiano, where she worked until the birth of Vitória, the couple's second child. In the meantime, Joana stimulated Vitor to train himself back into shape as a MMA contender.

In 2009, she got pregnant with Kyara, the third and last child of the couple, and started presenting the web show called Absoluta, aimed at pregnant women.. The goal of the show was to provide information about what to do and do not during pregnancy and to encourage natural birth, something that is increasingly rare in Brazil. Joana showed live the birth of Kyara being a record of viewers in a web show.

In 2014 she built the FortFit Academy in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro. Currently known as Belfort Gym, the venture is a success with more than 500 costumers practicing various types of activities such as CrossFit, Martial Arts, Spinning, Pilates, among others.

In 2017 in Coconut Creek, South Florida, Joana began investing in a new venture, the Belfort Fitness Lifestyle, a new gym model with a low investment and high profit concept.

Currently lives in Florida with her husband and three children. Joana runs the career of Vitor Belfort along with their team and lawyers. She also takes care of the family business, like real estate and the gyms in Brazil and the USA.

References

External links

 Interview with Joana Prado (in Portuguese)

Category:1976 births
Category:Living people
Category:People from São Paulo
Category:Brazilian female models
Category:American female models
Category:Brazilian women in business
Category:American women in business
Category:People with acquired American citizenship
Category:American people of Brazilian descent
Category:21st-century Brazilian women