Trigger Warning with Killer Mike is a new Netflix original documentary series that is innovative, impressive and incredibly thought-provoking. If anyone (aside from Killer Mike himself) stands out in this six-part series, it would be Mario Pagan.
Mario appeared in three episodes of the series, first showing up as part of a focus group in the episode titled White Gang Privilege.
When the idea for “Crip-a-Cola” was first introduced to the group, everyone in the room loved the idea. Of course, they didn’t know the name of the drink or the group behind it yet.
When they learned the name of the new soda being taste tested, everyone balked. No one thought walking down the street with a gang-affiliated soft drink was a good idea and none were more vocal about it than Mario.
In fact, he seemed to have a contrary opinion and an argument for many ideas that Killer Mike introduced during the Trigger Warning series.
But during that focus group, his comments angered Atlanta activist and rapper Killer Mike so much that he ended up calling Mario a racist.
It wasn’t the last we’d see of Mario, though.
Mario returned for another round when he appeared in Episode 5 titled Outside the Box. In this episode, Killer Mike recruited a politically diverse group of strangers to each write a verse about their own beliefs and perform it together.
This was (or should have been) a special episode for Mario because they used the hook from one of his own songs, Box Me In, to accompany what the others created.
Mario should have been excited
To be fair, the last man up was a white nationalist who used the opportunity to end the song by referring to himself as a “white n****r” and it was pretty appalling.
Mario did get up on stage to perform his part of the song, though, and gave us another look into who he is. It turns out that there’s more than one side to Mario after he came out on stage as M Je T’aime, in a drag performance.
If you thought that was the last we’d see of Mario on Trigger Warning with Killer Mike, you were wrong again. He showed up again in the last episode, titled Kill Your Masters.
In this episode, Killer Mike decided to create his own country called New Africa. He invited anyone who wanted to join and gave everyone equal rights. Even Mario, who didn’t ever seem to follow the status quo.
Again Mario was very contrary and caused quite a bit of division among the group. He also once again proved to be the standout among the incredibly diverse crew that Killer Mike assembled.
So now that we’ve binged every episode of Trigger Warning and have taken a moment to digest it all, there’s only one thing left to do — figure out who Mario Pagan is!
Mario from Trigger Warning is an actor
It’s worth noting that aside from Killer Mike, he’s the only person who has an IMDb credit for appearing in Trigger Warning and he’s listed as an actor named Mario Avani.
That said, aside from the Netflix documentary, it seems most of his acting has been done in commercials.
Mario has appeared in advertisements for Wells Fargo, North Carolina Education Lottery, Gold Peak Tea, US Auto Sales and more.
Mario Avani also appeared in an episode of Snapped: Killer Couples that aired on Oxygen in January 2018.
While he is an actor, Mario made it clear that he was not acting in Trigger Warning and what we saw was 100 percent real.
“Mario Avani is my stage name that I have used for my professional acting career for some time now. As you will see on all of my social media for Mario Avani, Trigger Warning is not mentioned,” Mario told Monsters & Critics exclusively.
“That is because this was not an acting job. It was me as a person, hence Mario Pagan, my legal name. The documentary then became my music persona, M Je T’aime in the latter episodes.”
We also learned that Mario does have a few active Instagram pages for his acting, performance art and for personal sharing and we
Mario Pagan — The person
Mario Avani the actor uses another name for his personal Instagram page — Mario Pagan. According to his IMDB bio, Mario was born in Americus, Georgia and now calls Atlanta his home.
On his personal Instagram page, Mario shares quite a bit about himself. In the caption of one photo, he even said it’s an “honor to be a part of a movement” in reference to Trigger Warning.
He likes to travel and has shared photos from trips to St. Louis and Puerto Rico. It’s also worth noting that Mario clearly has a sense of humor.
M Je T’aime is Mario’s music persona
Another side to Mario Pagan is his drag persona M Je T’aime. We got a chance to meet her on Trigger Warning with Killer Mike in Episode 5 when the diverse group performed their collaborative song.
After telling the camera that he didn’t know if he even wanted to be a part of the performance, Mario did end up making an appearance and delivering a verse — but when he came out on stage, it was a big surprise.
Instead of Mario, we got M Je T’aime, a drag performer with an over-the-top persona and similar looks to that of Jeffree Star. It was pretty epic to watch and perfectly rounded out the group of six performers who quite literally came from all walks of life.
M Je T’aime has her own Instagram page too and on it, is described as a rapper/dancer/drag queen. It’s not clear if Mario performs as M Je T’aime professionally or not but after appearing in Trigger Warning, it’s certainly likely that we’ll be seeing more of them both in the future.
Trigger Warning with Killer Mike is available on Netflix.