D.J. Jesus Luz

THROUGH the penthouse windows, New York City, foggy and soft-looking, was spread out in every direction. Jesus Luz, best known as the 22-year-old Brazilian model who is dating Madonna, was about to step up to the D.J. station in a club atop a Lower East Side hotel.

Young models in sheer cocktail dresses shimmied near chrome buckets holding bottles of the vodka brand sponsoring the party.

A freelance reporter for Life & Style magazine prepared to sidle up for a quick interview. “I’m here because I’m supposed to ask him questions about dating Madonna,” she said.

Asked if she knew how to say Mr. Luz’s first name, she ventured, “Hay-soos? Or maybe Gee-zus?”

Life has changed so fast for Mr. Luz, it is not surprising that not everyone in his orbit knows how to pronounce Jesus in the proper Portuguese way. Matt Levine, a club owner who had organized the party and refers to Mr. Luz as a friend, was going with “Hay-soos.” Josh Holland, who has been his personal trainer for several months, after the two met through a Madonna connection, was snapping photos and calling him “J.”

A year ago, Mr. Luz was earning about $500 a day as a model in Rio de Janeiro, said Sérgio Mattos, his agent at the time. Then in December 2008 he landed a shoot with Madonna for W magazine in which the two played lovers in a Rio hotel.

“At the moment he met Madonna, I never see him after that,” said Mr. Mattos in a telephone interview. “I sent him to the job and after that he changed phone numbers and I never see him again.”

The months since have been a study in ascension. Mr. Luz signed with Ford Models in New York, escorted Madonna to the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Ball in the spring and appeared on the runway for Dolce & Gabbana in Milan.

He enrolled at a D.J. school in Manhattan and in no time has landed high-profile gigs. For the 90-minute set he was spinning Nov. 12, only his second professional D.J. outing in the city, he was being paid around $15,000, said Matthew Isaacs, a promoter who had booked him, at a lower cost, to spin two nights later at Hiro in the meatpacking district.

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