90s singer Ricky Martin recently shared that his conversation with his father influenced his choice to publicly announce his sexuality.
Martin, 52 – known for popular songs like Livin’ La Vida Loca, Maria, and She Bangs – publicly came out as gay in 2010 at the age of 38.
He officially confirmed his sexuality in a letter and later discussed it in a new interview on Sirius XM’s Andy Cohen Live, Martin expressed that it was one of the best decisions he’s made.
‘I wish I could come out 20 times, it felt amazing. I started crying like a baby,’ he said.
He also shared for the first time his father’s influence on the decision. Martin’s father, a former psychologist named Enrique Martín Negroni, expressed concerns about the impact of the secret on his grandchildren. Martin recalled his father telling him, ‘”Rick, you need to come out.”‘
‘When I became a father, he said, “What are you going to teach your kids to lie?”‘ Martin emotionally recounted to Cohen.
The Puerto Rican singer is father to twin sons Matteo and Valentino, who he had via surrogacy in 2008. He also has daughter Lucia and son Renn with ex-husband Jwan Yosef.
In his coming out letter, written in both Spanish and English, he stated: ‘To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids where (sic) born with.’
Fans and critics had speculated about the sexuality of the Livin’ La Vida Loca singer for years prior to the 2010 letter, leading Martin to repeatedly avoid questions about it in interviews.
Most notably, Barbara Walters asked him if he was gay on national television in 2000.
‘You could stop these rumors,’ Walters said. ‘You could say, “Yes, I am gay, or no, I’m not.”‘ Martin famously responded by saying: ‘Barbara, for some reason, I just don’t feel like it.’
But the famous moment wasn’t easy for Martin, even though it has become a cultural touchstone. He revealed in People in 2021, ‘When she dropped the question, I felt violated because I was just not ready to come out. I was very afraid. There’s a little PTSD with that.’
Martin told Cohen that his decision to avoid questions like Walters’ prior to posting the letter was something that the people around him supported.
His team advised him: ‘“You don’t need to share, everybody knows around you, you don’t have to tell the world, your friends know, your family know, why do you need to stand in front of the camera and talk about it?”‘
However, the choice to come out was ultimately very personal for him: ‘They didn’t understand the importance of it. Now I see it. I understood before they did how important it is, not only for me, but to be a spokesperson.’
Martin also talked about the challenges of revealing his sexual orientation to his family when he was a teenager, remembering how his mother struggled with it.
‘When I came out to my mum at 18, she was worried because she said “oh my God, I just don’t want you to hurt. People out there are really cruel” – so it took her a while to accept it,’ the Grammy winner said.
But Martin’s mother eventually accepted her son, even flying to be with him after he came out to the world. He told Cohen, ‘But when I did it, I made sure she was on a plane on her way to see me. I did what I did, I wrote a letter and I tweeted it.’
The decision was partly meant to provide struggling LGBTQ+ children with someone to admire, the kind of guidance Martin lacked in his early years. People ‘There are many, many kids out there who don’t have someone to admire. All they have around them is people telling them, “What you’re feeling is evil,”‘ he said.
‘But, you can’t force someone to reveal their sexual orientation. But if you have an egg and you open it from the outside, only death comes out. But if the egg opens up from the inside, life comes out.’
In Martin’s situation, it was just a little push from his father that allowed him to open up and live a more genuine life.
‘What are you going to teach your kids to lie?’
