For years, Ricky Martin has been considered one of the most desired men in Latin music. The singer rose to fame in 1984, when he joined the Menudo quintet; But he became a worldwide star with Vuelve, his first solo studio album and his hit María.
For years he was considered a sex symbol that many women desired, and that the team behind his figure promoted. However, the artist hid a secret: his homosexuality. The singer lived a very dark time in which he struggled to hide his true self, and even closed the doors to relationships so that he would not be discovered. "I wasted a lot of energy trying to manipulate my sexuality," he admitted a few years ago in an interview.
This is what he confessed again to popular host Andy Cohen on his radio show Andy Cohen Live, on Sirius XM. The singer tried to convince his team how important it was to admit his sexual identity publicly, but they urged him not to do so, given the image he had in the world.
The artist remembers how his team told him "don't do it, this is going to ruin your career. Why do it? It's not necessary. Everyone around you knows it, the world doesn't need to know it. Your friends know it, you family knows. They didn't understand the importance of this," explains the singer, who only today understands why.
However, one day he decided to do it, and a person gave him the impetus to do so. It was his father, Enrique Martin Negroni, a psychologist by profession, who understood the importance of revealing his true self to his followers. It happened after the singer became the father of his twins, Valentino and Matteo (15), in 2008, with the artist's father giving him a great lesson that made him decide once and for all: he could not begin his fatherhood with a lie.
"Are you going to teach your children to lie? You need to confess. You need to be open. Tell me what you need, I want to help you. How can we do it?" he remembers his father saying.
It was the boost the artist needed. Thus, he wrote the famous letter to his followers that in 2019 he changed his life forever by confessing his homosexuality. "Writing these lines is the approach to my inner peace, a vital part of my evolution. Today I accept my homosexuality as a gift that life gives me. I feel blessed to be who I am."
As the singer states, tears fell when he finished, because of the weight that had been lifted from his shoulders. "I looked at my assistant and said, 'I think I need a hug.'"
The artist is now the father of four children. In addition to the twins, he is also the father of a girl, Lucía (5) and Renn (4), along with her ex-husband, Jwan Yosef; all of them conceived thanks to surrogacy.
