Interviews : Oh, Ricky!
Interviews : Oh, Ricky!
"I was seduced by the madness and the fame," Ricky Martin says, letting out a deep breath as he leans back on a sofa in a studio in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The 40-year-old superstar's chiseled features, which once made him an MTV fixture, ensure he's still boyishly handsome, but there's also a well-earned maturity that wasn't evident when Martin became a household name. "Once I took a moment to step out of the spotlight and create my family, I thought it was the perfect moment to have this stability."
Having settled down with his partner and two children in New York this winter, Martin has found a constancy that seemed to be missing when he first became a superstar more than a dozen years ago. The singer is in many ways liberated, certainly from the closet in which he hid his sexual orientation. Perhaps the best word for Martin is one he used to describe himself last year while accepting an award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation: free.
He may be free, but today Martin is a very busy man and on a rigid schedule. Martin arrives at the studio for this interview and photo shoot accompanied by his longtime publicist, John Reilly, and his manager, Jose Vega, who's been with him since he joined the wildly popular Puerto Rican singing group Menudo when he was 12 years old. He's just come from a wardrobe fitting for Evita, a Broadway revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's celebrated political-themed musical; it's the reason for his move to New York. And though he says he's eager to get home to see his twin sons, Matteo and Valentino, Martin takes time to offer a friendly smile and firm handshake to everyone on the small crew assembled for the photo shoot. Although it's a brutally chilly Friday afternoon in Manhattan, Martin is gregarious and warm.
Martin's charisma appears effortless and genuine, and his magnetism isn't reserved for the cameras. The crew, most of whom are gay men, exchange glances to signify that this will be an exciting afternoon. Even the lesbian studio manager — no stranger to superstar photo sessions — is hovering about, clearly smitten with Martin.
His crossover appeal is, by now, almost legendary.
Born Enrique Martin Morales to a Roman Catholic family in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he began driving women and gay men wild as a member of the boy band Menudo. In 1984, Martin was recruited into the group to replace a departing member, and he would remain with Menudo for five years. In Menudo he was trained to make fans swoon, and he achieved teen idol status, selling out huge venues, appearing on magazine covers, recording dozens of albums — sometimes up to four per year — and starring in Pepsi and McDonald's commercials and appearing on television shows including The Love Boat.
Feeling stifled creatively, he left Menudo in 1989 and began a solo career that yielded four hit Spanish-language albums, a year-long stint as a bartender on the daytime drama General Hospital, and a turn in Les Misérables on Broadway, before a performance that would alter the course of both his career and contemporary music. In 1999, while still relatively unknown in the U.S., Martin performed a pelvis-gyrating version of "La Copa de la Vida" ("The Cup of Life)" to a standing ovation at the Grammy Awards. Months later the international chart-topping success of his self-titled English-language album and its inescapable lead single, "Livin' la Vida Loca," would usher in the Latin pop explosion, helping to prepare the lucrative U.S. market for Latin entertainers Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias. Martin was everywhere: MTV, Saturday Night Live, dozens of magazine profiles, even on the cover of The Advocate as the subject of a 1999 article that examined "Ricky fever." His level of stardom made a literal truth out of the title of his loca hit song.
"You have to be careful," he says now about playing to sold-out stadium crowds around the world. "It's not easy to deal with fame. I'm very lucky to be surrounded by amazing people who are raw and honest, who will say I'm wrong, and who will also congratulate me." (Read More)
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