Ricky Martin
On December 24, 1971, Enrique Martin Morales, who would later become famous as Ricky Martin, was born in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. His father, a psychologist, and his mother, an accountant, divorced when the boy was two years old. Enrique grew up in a Catholic home as a novice, going to Sunday school. But that did not stop him from starting to perform at the age of 13 - he sang with Menudo, which was considered almost the most popular band in Puerto Rico.
For six years Enrique was in the band, but in 1990 he decided to start a solo career. He moved to New York, and there his first step on the way to fame was his role in the series "Reaching for the Star". It was in this project that Morales called himself Ricky Martin.
Soon a contract with a label was signed, and Martin recorded his first album. It was very popular in Latin America, and Ricky went on tour.
In 1993 a second Hispanic album was recorded which was listened not only in South America but all over the world. The more so, Ricky appeared on TV again in the series "General Hospital".
By 1995 Martin became very, very popular in Europe, first of all, thanks to the song Maria from his third album. It is still often played in European clubs.
In 1996-1997 Ricky went on the first world tour of his career. Then he returned to New York and tried himself on stage - he played one of the leading roles in the production of "Les Miserables" based on the novel by Victor Hugo. After a series of performances, Martin began recording his fourth album, which subsequently went platinum.
In 1999 Ricky reached a new level - he recorded the first English-language album of his career, which he named after himself. The first single, Livin' La Vida Loca, went global. Besides that, the album included a duet with Madonna, which aroused even more interest on the part of the listeners.
The second English-language album of the singer was released in 2000. The most famous songs included in it are She Bangs, as well as a duet with Christina Aguilera Nobody Wants To Be Lonely. Despite the popularity of his compositions in English, in 2003 Martin decided to return to the roots and recorded the record in Spanish. In 2005, Martin started to sing in English again on the Live album.
Since the middle of the 2000s, Ricky began to lose his fans, maybe because of the rumors concerning his private life and sexual orientation. Nevertheless, people continued to come to his concerts, though another world tour had to be shortened considerably - according to the official version, due to the lack of proper promotion of the show.
Nevertheless, towards the end of the decade people were more interested in Martin's life than in his art. For years, Ricky claimed to be heterosexual, he was engaged to TV host Rebecca de Alba, and called himself a "hot Puerto Rican guy." Officially the truth came out in the spring of 2010 - Martin on his own official website, released a statement in which he admitted his sexual orientation.
A year and a half before that - in the summer of 2008 - Ricky became a father of two twin boys. They were born by a surrogate mother. Now Martin, first of all, is engaged in upbringing of the little ones. In addition, he spends a lot of time on his own charitable foundation, whose main purpose is to help children from poor families and generally to guys who do not have enough money to exist.
Ricky Martin and his sons
Maybe soon Ricky will return to the big stage. But for now, apparently, the quiet family life with rare outings in the public eye is much more to his liking. The more so, in spite of this, he is still a household name - Out magazine even voted him Man of the Year.
Among other things, Ricky also published a book
