Global superstar Ricky Martin recently shared his support for the Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ movements during an interview with Proud Radio on Apple Music.
“We [thought] we knew about racism and when all this happened we realized we had no idea. I’ve been wearing the shoes of my fellow sisters, the Black community, the trans-black community that have always been struggling,” he said. “They’ve always been screaming, ‘We need help. They are killing us.’ And no one was listening. So you know what? This door has been opened where I believe all of the minorities will benefit from it because at the end of the day what will happen is that all the minorities will get together and will fight together for the same mission.”
The Puerto Rican singer also touched on being out and proud. He commends fellow Puerto Rican Latin trap artist Bad Bunny for being unabashedly gender fluid and said that was part of the reason why he wanted to work with him. “He’s a super powerful eye that we need to support,” Martin said, adding he has faith in the younger generation. “Because of their attitude, they are letting us know that, for example, my kids are not going to be dealing with half of the things that we dealt with.”
The 48-year-old father of four has been married to Syrian-Swedish painter Jwan Yosef for two years and this year marks a decade since he came out. He’s been a vocal advocate for the LGBTQ+ community since. In his memoir, “Me,” he shared that coming out allowed him to finally put his truth out into the world and find true happiness.
“I got to the place I was fighting as I was writing my book between saying, am I gay? Am I bisexual? Am I gay? Am I bisexual? And either [is] okay, just go within and do not lie to yourself. And then I said, ‘Rick, you are a very fortunate, homosexual, man. You are gay.’ And I wrote it and I pressed send, and then I cried like crazy. And I’ve been super happy ever since.”