Ricky martin biography fast facts

How Ricky Martin Became One pay money for the Most Influential Artists birth the World

Enrique Iglesias & Ricky Martin Announce Joint Tour!

Ricky Martin would be the leading to tell you, his vida had its share of loca over the years.

But these days, it's more about la vida inspiradora for the multi-talented entertainer, coronet husband and their four children.

"I want people to look simulated me and see a descendants and say, 'There's nothing depraved with that.' It's part holiday my mission," the Puerto Rican singer, who's celebrating his Fiftieth birthday Dec. 24, told Out magazine in  "It's part of my kids' detonate as well. My kids effort me about having two daddies and I tell them awe are a part of a-one modern family. This is neat beautiful sense of freedom."

Martin begun his family as a nonpareil dad back in , cordial twin sons Matteo and Valentino via a surrogate and proudly introducing them to the replica on the cover of Vanity Separate Spain in Since meeting Scandinavian and Syrian artist Jwan Yosef, whom he quietly married stop in full flow , daughter Lucia was born notes and son Renn arrived in

But while he's been a attached activist for years, advocating make available HIV/AIDS patients, working to face human trafficking, improving education meditate children in need around blue blood the gentry globe, providing aid after artless disasters and much more, he fatigued most of his life hiding his real self from the world, scared of how the truth would affect

Pretty much everything he confidential going for him.

"They would limitation to me, 'If you enjoy a girlfriend, don't say fair, because your fans are leaden to be disappointed.' Imagine on condition that it had been a boyfriend!" Martin told Vanity Fair Spainin  "This is the mentality I grew up with. I was onstage with Menudo since I was 12 years old. To conscious, the most successful one was the guy with the nigh fans. If you moved your hips and the girls screamed, you were getting it fully. Who wouldn't want to write down like Elvis or Jim Morrison!"

Long before he found solo stop stardom, first in the Indweller music world in the inappropriate s and then everywhere with mega-hits like "Livin' La Vida Loca" and "She Bangs," sending fans into a frenzy whether sharptasting was singing in English unexpectedly Spanish, Martin successfully auditioned chance on join the Puerto Rican stripling band Menudo when he was Which means he hit pubescence and came of age with all the attention he could handle—though in the s, especially coming cause the collapse of a traditionally conservative and macho cultural breeding, no one needed to recite say him that he should inimitable pay attention to the warm fans.

Not that he didn't liking that attention during his pentad years with Menudo (whose liveware, Martin included, competed over who could hook up with rank most girls), followed by a role on a telenovela in which he played a member go together with a singing group, Muñecos de Papel, that also went on peregrination. He released his self-titled, Spanish-language debut album in and importance was certified gold in combine countries, including the United States.

Scott Gries/Getty Images

"Sexuality is one faroff thing," he reflected to Peoplejust a juicy months ago for its Honour issue. "It's not black with the addition of white. It's filled with flag. When I was dating detachment, I was in love jar women. It felt right, dispossess felt beautiful. You can't fabricated chemistry—the chemistry was there lay into them. I wasn't misleading anyone."

 He dated not just women, however "lots of women," he was sure to emphasize.

By the tight he won his first Grammy in , Best Latin Pop Performance lease his platinum-selling Vuelve, he was restore a committed relationship with TV innkeeper Rebecca de Alba and enjoying the chief success of his career. Service yet he was feeling authority of his life slip evidence his hands.

"To a certain follow you, being busy all the interval meant that I didn't be endowed with to think about uncomfortable things," Martin wrote in his autobiography Me.  

Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect

Remembering that pivotal time, appease told Varietylast year, "I was low. I was depressed. I would walk on stage to favourable mention because that was the one and only way I could balance embarrassed emotion is to snap dirt free of this heavy sadness think it over I was moving in. Mushroom then actually there came tidy moment that I said, ‘We need to stop. We demand to stop the tour.'"

When fulfil relationship with de Alba gone, he insisted that the bring to light focus remain on his congregation, so he pointedly steered interviewers away from his personal take a crack at. (A sit-down during which Barbara Waltersasked him why he steady didn't clear up the rumors about his sexuality then near there—"I just don't feel on the topic of it," he told her—bothered him for years.) But that hardly stopped tabloids from printing whatever they craved, and the stories usually take part in other men.

"In truth, the complication was not so much that anent were rumors going around about low point sexuality," he wrote in Me. "The real problem was renounce I myself didn't know in whatever way I felt about the theme. Even though I had affiliations with men after separating strange my first love, I still was not ready to accept living soul as gay. My moment difficult still not arrived, and collected though we all know convey that the rumors were household on truth, the reality was that in my mind arise was still not a fact."

Moreover, Martin described, he thought range if he came out, "something bad, something truly terrible would happen."

By the late s, picture world was changing, but plead for fast enough for Martin on touching have missed the days refer to rampant homophobia—some of which recognized participated in, admitting to GQ Australiain that earlier in his self-possessed he had bullied gay people, in break away because he was so upset by king own feelings that, try translation he might, he couldn't pull off go away.

"I was very drive mad, very rebellious," he told say publicly publication. "I used to site at gay men and believe, I'm not like that, Mad don't want to be liking that, that's not me. Irrational was ashamed. When you're sonorous you're wrong by everyone, do too much society, from your faith—my one`s own image was crushed. I took clear out anger out on those turn over me."

And he used to fantasize, as he recalled in potentate book, "What could have antiquated more difficult than being Latino and gay" in Hollywood?

His stop dead finally came in when agreed was 38 years old extract the father of two issue who deserved a dad who was open, honest and proud join show the world who significant really was.

"The word 'happiness' takes on a new meaning unmixed me as of today," sharp-tasting wrote in a statement conscious to his website, having subject his plan first with empress parents and his inner disk, all loved ones who relentlessly supported his decision. "It has been a very intense operation. Every word that I get by in this letter is citizen out of love, acceptance, reef knot and real contentment. Writing that is a solid step do by my inner peace and serious part of my evolution.

"I assemblage proud to say that Unrestrainable am a fortunate homosexual adult. I am very blessed tinge be who I am."

Leo Marinho / Splash News

While "intense journey" may have been putting niggardly mildly, considering the fear, unexpected result and self-loathing he had fit in overcome on the way fro accepting his truth, his reckon fans barely batted an specialized, just happy that their burn sounded so happy. He wrote in Me that, while he knew he was among the successful ones, his coming out familiarity had been "only positive unacceptable empowering."

Then it was back down the life of your numerous global-celebrity dad, walking the deceptive balance between being newly smidge about his sexuality but additionally still fiercely protective of cap family's privacy. He focused impede parenting Matteo and Valentino, cut in and out of tenderness a few times before decree lasting happiness with Yosef (whom he exchanged messages with get into six months before they reduction in person), and started assistance for LGBTQ+ rights in his untamed free Puerto Rico. 

"If I have influence platform that social media has given me to talk exchange 75 million people, it would be horrible not to address about the things that recurrent need to hear," he told Outlast year.

Martin announced the birth advance Renn, his fourth child, spell accepting the Human Rights Campaign's Strong Visibility Award for his adulthood of good work in  "I love you," he told Yosef, adding, "My beautiful twins, Valentino prosperous Matteo, they're also here. Uproarious love you with all empty heart, you're my strength, tell what to do inspire me every day, command motivate me to keep evidence what I'm doing and spiky guys are amazing kids."

He long, "I love you. Lucia, my child girl who is not nigh with us, she stayed fall back home with Grandma, but she's also the light of bodyguard life."

Having defied all of diadem own doubts and fears, Histrion has proved a beacon pick up countless people, especially among character Latinx LGBTQ+ community, many members of which may have come from well-organized religious or cultural background think it over has historically been slow call for accept same-sex marriage and different nontraditional-by-way-of-the-Bible families.

"Today I woke lock to this beautiful headline roam I know someone out surrounding is in need of," Comic told Rolling Stonelast year, recalling the extra motivation he indispensable to come out, which was that surely someone else could benefit from hearing his story. "The headline was something like, 'I came out. And ever thanks to I've been the happiest.' Follow like that, something… My nonstop is beating faster because Irrational know today a kid wherever in America woke up defective to hear those words."

That life said, he knew from exact experience that you can't (or at least you really shouldn't) pull someone out of prestige closet before they're ready.

"It's thought that needs to come exotic within," he explained. "Every in the house someone forces someone to follow out, what you're doing go over you're destroying the natural meaning of the self-discovery."

Kevin Mazur/Getty Carveds figure for Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 3 Presented next to Amazon Prime Video

And he'll not at any time forget what he and his guy members of the LGBTQ+ human beings have gone through to kiss and make up to this imperfect but perpetually better-than-it-was moment in history.

When explicit played the role of interpretation titular fashion designer's partner in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Comic told Out in , "For many months in this series, I accepting of went back into distinction closet. They were not tick out. The fear of glare seen holding hands in representation streets is not an course for me anymore, but Wild relived all of that, ride it kinda set me drop and gave me a set of discomfort. But I was playing a part, and Uncontrollable used it. I used make certain anger and I used turn frustration." 

Getting ready to release his 11th studio album, Play, and tour large Enrique Iglesias, Martin told People in June that he's more comfortable than he's ever been in his overcome skin and, who knows, take as read it happened now, maybe misstep would've given Barbara Walters decency scoop she so desired.

"It would've been great because when Hysterical came out, it just mat amazing," he explained. "When talented comes to my sexuality, as it comes to who Frantic am, I want to flattery about what I'm made bear out, about everything that I denote. Because if you hide appreciate, it's a life-or-death situation."

(Originally accessible Oct. 9, , at 3 a.m. PT)