Ricky Martin
The “King of Latin Pop” came out in 2010 as a “fortunate homosexual man” – one of the biggest stars to do so.
Ricky Martin grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and appeared in television commercials as a child. At 12 he joined the boy band Menudo, which was hugely popular in Latin America. He later started a solo career in Mexico and acted in a Mexican telenovela and the American soap opera “General Hospital”.
In 1998 he performed “La Copa de la Vida” at the Grammy Awards and electrified the audience. “Livin’ la Vida Loca” (1999) became a worldwide number one and helped launch the Latin pop boom in the United States. He sold tens of millions of records and won several Grammys.
For years he avoided questions about his sexuality. In 2010 he wrote on his website that he was “a fortunate homosexual man”. He said that keeping silent had been a mistake and that he wanted his twin sons, born through surrogacy in 2008, to grow up without secrets. He later married the Swedish-Syrian artist Jwan Yosef; they separated in 2023.
Martin has campaigned for LGBTQ rights and against human trafficking, and in 2019 joined the protests in Puerto Rico against the governor.