Martin - Me

Table of Contents

God, help me to tell the truth to the strong and to avoid telling lies to get the weaks applause. If you give me fortune, do not take away my reason. If you give me success, do not take away my humility. If you give me humility, do not take away my dignity. God, help me to see the other side of the medal. Dont let me blame others of treason just because they dont think like me. God, teach me to love people as I love myself and to judge me as I judge others. Please, dont let me be proud if I succeed, or fall in despair if I fail. Remind me that failure is the experience that precedes triumph. Teach me that forgiving is the most important in the strong and that revenge is the most primitive sign in the weak. If you take away my success, let me keep my strength to succeed from failure. If I fail people, give me courage to apologize and if people fail me, give me courage to forgive them. God, if I forget you, please do not forget me.

MAHATMA GANDHI

At some point in our lives, all of us ultimately arrive at a moment when we are somehow compelled to look back and consciously reflect on the life we have led. We feel the need to understand where we come from, because we want to see with more clarity where we are actually headed and where it is that we really want to go; we search for a way to balance that which we have lived and that which remains for us to experience, with the desire, perhaps, to find a more meaningful purpose to our existence. Some people decide to do this when they are older, closer to the end of their lives, but for me this moment is right now. Today I feel the need to look back and observe the path that has led me to where I am, so that the future that lies ahead can be as luminous and truthful as possible.

MY GIVEN NAME is Enrique Martin Morales, but most people know me as Ricky Martin: musician, singer, composer, philanthropist, and some might also know Im an actor. And I am all of those things; but I am also a lot more. The people closest to me know me as Kiki (a nickname that comes from Enrique), and aside from being an artist I am also a son, a brother, a friendand most recently, a father. For so long I tried to keep those parts of my life completely separate: When I am onstage or in front of the cameras, I am Ricky; but in private I am Kiki, a man who each day confronts the challenges of life, just like everybody else. While most people reading this book have a clear sense of who I am as an artist, there is a fundamental part of me that very few really know.

Today, after all that I have lived and the many experiences I have been through, I realize that it isnt fair to separate Kiki from Ricky. They are one and the same. It has taken me some time to understand this, and although I used to believe that the best thing would be to hide my personal life and the essence of who I am, now I hold the full conviction that my true happiness lies in living my life freely, without any fears or false pretexts. It has been a gradual process. I cant say exactly when the realization hit me, but I do know that I got to the point where I could no longer live without facing my truth. This is why I have chosen to finally end the secret that I have carefully guarded for so many years: I have decided to tell the world that I accept my homosexuality and celebrate this gift that life has given me.

Now I feel strong. Free. More free than ever.

Many people probably believe that my life can be broken down into two periods: before and after Livin La Vida Loca. Or maybe there are some who think my life is divided between the before and after of my revelation, and the truth is that this is completely understandable, because until now, thats more or less all I have really shared about myself. And though I wont deny the fact that Livin La Vida Loca was a critical moment in my life, I can guarantee that there were many others equally as important to me. There are also the before and after of Menudo, the before and after of my first trip to India, and the before and after of becoming a father.... They have all been unique experiences that have impacted me profoundly and altered the way I navigate life. And I hopeI knowthat there are many more such moments still to come.

Just like everyone else, I have had to walk down my own spiritual path and live through my experiencesthe good and the bad, the love and the lack of love, the sense of feeling lost and then finding myselfto arrive at where I am today. Before I could begin to answer the endless questions that were constantly asked of me, I needed to face myself. Of course, some might say I should have done this many years ago, but in the deepest part of my being, I am certain that the moment is now, because that is how it was always meant to be. It is only now that I am ready, and it is only now that I can do itnot one day earlier or one day later.

The process of writing this memoir has not been easy. It has demanded a lot from meabove and beyond what I expected. Ive had to tie up loose ends that Id never attempted to tie up before, to work deeply into memories that were already erased from my mind, and to find answers to very difficult questions; but above all else... above everything, I have finally had to accept myself. I have had to bare myself utterly and completely to see myself exactly as I am. I discovered things that I likedand others not as much. And it was precisely the things I didnt like so much that I became intent on remedying from the moment I became conscious of them. I would have never imagined that writing this book would lead me to where it has; however, today I know that I am a better manand a happier manbecause of what I have learned about myself throughout the process.

I wanted to say a lot in these pages, but I wanted to do it with humility and dignity, focusing on the experiences that have helped shape me. More than an autobiography, this book is a testament of my spiritual beliefs, an account of the steps I have taken to arrive at the place of happiness and completeness where I now find myself. Ill talk about many personal matters that I have never discussed publicly before, but it isnt my intention to share every little thing, either. I believe that were all entitled to a certain degree of privacy; there are certain things I keep to myself because they are mine alone and I want them to stay that way. What I would like to do is explore the different paths and experiences that have led me to be the person I am today.

I know what it feels like to be loved and I know what it feels like to love someonetotally and absolutely, with intensity and without any prejudgments. I also know what it is like to be judged for what I am and for what I am not. If I hadnt gone through all of this, maybe I wouldnt have been able to arrive at the moment when I finally understood that my chosen path was the right one, since it has made me into the person I am today. And it doesnt matter how I look at it; that person I am today, that person I have created with so much effort and dedication, is, second to my children, my most precious work. I am certain that there are many more steps left for me to take, many more things to experience, and therefore many chapters left to write. But right now I just want to open my heart to you and share my story and this moment of my life with the world.