Ricky Martin opens up about new music, his much-publicized breakup and his gay sex symbol status in a new interview with PrideSource.
The 43-year-old Latin superstar says his six-year relationship (and subsequent split) with boyfriend Carlos Gonzalez Abella partly inspired "A Quien Quiera Escuchar," which translates as "To Whomever Wants to Listen," his first album of all-new material since 2011. The main themes of the music, he said, were "honesty" and "vulnerability."
"After six years of being in a very steady relationship with him, yes, we have a lot of stories and we have a lot of moments of love and lots of light and yes, he is part of this album," Martin tells PrideSource's Chris Azzopardi. "It's not about what I've lived [through] this year that we broke up or even the last five years. It's decades of allowing myself to really go back and remember specific relationships that really [affected] me in many ways. And it became music."
Although he is currently "enjoying being single," Martin is very much a hopeless romantic.
"I love waking up in the morning and, if you're not with your boyfriend, [sending] that first message or text in the morning: 'Hey baby, how ya doing? I hope you're fine. I just woke up. I'm doing this and this and this today.' I loooove that," he explained. "And I love picking up my phone and waiting for that reply from that text -- it's great."
Judging from his oft-shirtless Instagram shots, Martin is comfortable with his status as a gay sex symbol, and now describes the day he came out as gay on Twitter as "the most amazing day of my life after the birth of my kids."
Calling himself "obsessed with social media," he said the barechested selfies were just his way of letting "people know how normal my life is."
"It's so amazing to know that you have nothing to hide, man," he said. "What you see is what you get. And this is me."
To read the full PrideSource interview with Ricky Martin, head here.
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