Gianni Jovanović is an entrepreneur, activist and performer. He is considered one of the loudest voices of the Rom*nja and Sinti*zze community in Germany. He also fights for the rights of minorities within the LGBTIQ+ community. In 2023, Jovanović, born in 1978 into a Roma family from Serbia, appeared as co-host of RuPaul’s “Drag Race Germany”.

In the episode, Gianni Jovanović discusses his experiences of racism in Germany and talks about the difficulties faced by the Roma community in being accepted as an intrinsic part of Europe. As a Roma who grew up in Germany with a Serbian family history, he describes his multifaceted identity, which cannot be limited to one nationality. The European idea is just as much a part of him as Serbian folk music.

Gianni Jovanović is living his dream. In doing so, he brings the discrimination of ethnic and sexual minorities into the social discourse. The rights and freedoms fought for in the European Union for every individual to develop freely must be preserved on the one hand, but should also benefit all Europeans, including people in the Balkans, on the other.