Joana Marques

Marques was born on 3 January 1986. Her father, João Pedro Marques [pt], is a historian and novelist. She has a degree in communication sciences from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the NOVA University Lisbon.^[2]

In 2007, she began working as a scriptwriter. In 2012, she created and presented the programme Altos e Baixos on the Portuguese cable channel Canal Q with her then-future husband, Daniel Leitão. The title was a joke based on the considerable difference in height between the two. The programme ran for five seasons.^[3][4] Between 2012 and 2018, she worked at the Antena 3 radio station, where she participated in programmes such as As Donas da Casa, which she co-hosted with Ana Galvão, and Extremamente Desagradável. Her time at Antena 3 included the Toca a Todos event in December 2014, in which she, Galvão and Diogo Beja hosted a continuous 73-hour broadcast, with the aim of raising funds for the Catholic charity Caritas Portugal, in the fight against child poverty.^[5]

In December 2018, she left Antena 3, making her debut on Rádio Renascença the following month as one of the announcers on the programme As Três da Manhã, together with Galvão and Carla Rocha (Carla Rocha was subsequently replaced by Filipa Galvão, who was in turn replaced in 2021 by Inês Lopes Gonçalves).^[6] Her comedy section on the show, also named Extremamente Desagradável, became the most listened-to radio comedy show in Portugal. From 2020 onwards, she became a scriptwriter for the satirical SIC TV programme Isto É Gozar Com Quem Trabalha, starring Ricardo Araújo Pereira. In 2022, she was a judge on the 7th edition of Ídolos, being the only member of the jury who did not have a career linked to music.^[6]

In 2019, Marques published Vai correr tudo mal – O primeiro (e possível o último) livro de anti-ajuda^[7] and in 2022 she published Apontar é Feio.^[8] In 2022 and 2023 she wrote a column called Elefante na Sala, for Visão magazine, with the articles being published as a book in June 2024.^[9]