Ricky Martin is one of the first people to make Latin Music popular in the mainstream consciousness of the United States and the rest of the English-speaking world. Because of him, we have huge stars like Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and many, many more stars from Latin America becoming popular outside of their traditional audience base.
He's basically been working in the entertainment industry his whole life and despite somehow being in his late 40s, he doesn't see to be stopping anytime soon. While he has fallen a bit from his peak in popularity in recent years, his name still holds a ton of weight in the entertainment industry.
That being the case, there is a lot of, probably mostly-younger people, who don't know much or anything about this Latin superstar. So with that being said, let's go over 15 things you probably didn't know about Ricky Martin.
15 Early Life
Ricky Martin was born on December 24, 1971, in San Juan, Puerto Rico as Enrique Martín Morales. His father, Enrique Martín Negroni, was a psychologist and his mother, Nereida Morales, was an accountant. He is the youngest of three boys on his mother's side and also the oldest of his father's children.
14 TV Commercials
Martin was a showman from a young age, starting to sing at six years old. After a nine-year-old Martin and his father saw that a company was holding auditions for commercials, Ricky auditioned and began appearing in commercials for toothpaste, restaurants and sodas in Puerto Rico. After a year and a half he was already in 11 advertisements.
13 Auditioning For A Boy Band
After achieving this modest fame in Puerto Rico, Martin auditioned to become a part of Menudo. Menudo, which is a Puerto Rican slang term for loose change, was a Puerto Rican boy band that was formed in 1977. Martin was rejected from the band originally for being too short. However, by his third audition Martin impressed the executives so much that he joined the group at 12 years old.
12 Branching Out On His Own
After some time with Menudo, Martin was approached by a Mexican TV producer and was offered a role in a Mexican Telenovela, Alcanzar Una Estrella. Martin took the job and appeared on the show's second season. in 1990 Martin signed with Sony Music Entertainment's Latin imprint Sony Discos and released his first album, Ricky Martin, under them.
11 Musical Influences
Martin grew up listening to both English and Spanish music and was very musically inclined like other members of his mother's family. Martin listened to REO Speedwagon and Led Zeppelin growing up and said that he took influence for his musical style from Michael Jackson, Cher, Madonna, and Elvis Presley.
10 Early Relationships
Martin was in an on-off platonic relationship with Mexican TV host, Rebecca de Alba for over 14 years. The pair had talked about getting married and having children together multiple times and Martin at one point thought of proposing to her. However, for reasons you probably already know, he never followed through on that idea.
9 Children
In August of 2008, Martin became the father of twin boys, Matteo and Valentino, born by a gestational surrogate mother. Martin became the father to another child on December 31, 2018, with his partner Jwan Yosef announcing via Instagram the birth of their daughter Lucía Martin-Yosef.
8 Sexual Ambiguity
After the massive success of his song, Livin' la Vida Loca brought him mainstream popularity in the English speaking world, Martin's personal life became the subject of many people's interest. Martin started being questioned by journalists about his large gay following, most infamously by Barabra Walters, who really pushed Martin to answer questions about his sexuality.
7 Coming Out
On March 29, 2010, Martin publicly came out as homosexual with a blog post on his website. Later that year in an interview with Oprah, Martin told Winfrey that for years he considered himself bisexual but that now he is only interested in relationships with men. He has stated that he has fallen in love with women in the past and did so for many years and that he is still attracted to women but prefers to not label himself as bisexual.
6 His Husband
Martin met and began dating his now-husband Jwan Yosef in April of 2016. Yosef is a Syrian-Swedish painter of Kurdish and Armenian descent. The pair announced their engagement on November 16, 2016, while on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. The pair later married in January 2018.
5 Children's Book
After becoming a father, Martin decided to try his hand at writing children's books. Martin's first children's book, Santiago the Dreamer in Land Among the Stars, was published in November 2013 in both English and Spanish. The book's illustrations were done by Patricia Castelao.
4 Spanish Citizen
In November 2011, Martin acquired Spanish nationality. Martin's grandmother was Spanish and he owns a home in Madrid. Martin clarified that he was not abandoning his Puerto Rican identity stating
"I was born in Puerto Rico, I am a Puerto Rican, and Puerto Rico is my homeland. I made the request for Spanish citizenship some time ago, I was just waiting for a response. This step is part of planning for the future within a global community of whom I am part. Spain is a country with which I share many memories and strong ties born of my roots and the love they have given me since I first visited."
3 Buddhism
Like most people in Puerto Rico, Martin was raised Catholic but states that he is open to all religious beliefs especially Buddhism. Martin feels that only listening to the teachings of one religion can limit an individual in certain aspects. Martin said in 2006
"I really like the Buddhist philosophy but that doesn't mean that I am of the religion. If I subscribe to Buddhism, I can't be of anything else...I am not going to follow those rules."
2 Humanitarian Work
In December of 2003, Martin was appointed as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In this role, Martin helped in UNICEF's efforts towards fighting for children's rights around the world, especially in cases of human trafficking. Martin has also collaborated with the International Organization for Migration in their efforts to stop child trafficking.
1 Ricky Martin Foundation
In 2004, Ricky Martin started the Fundación Ricky Martin (Ricky Martin Foundation), A non-profit organization that advocates for the well-being of children all around the world. Among the events that the organization holds are summer camps and concerts with Martin personally attending them.