Ricky Martin has revealed that his father encouraged him to come out as gay.
The Puerto Rican singer shared on SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live that his father had pushed him to speak out about his sexuality.
In the interview, the Livin' La Vida Loca hitmaker said that his father, who is a psychologist, told him, "Rick, you need to come out."
He added, "Especially when I became a father, he said, 'What are you going to teach your kids, to lie?'"
Ricky officially came out in 2010 at the age of 38 after years of speculation about his sexuality.
Ricky noted that his team disagreed, telling him he didn't need to make his sexuality public.
"'You don't need to share, everybody knows around you, you don't have to tell the world, your friends know, your family know, why do you need to stand in front of the camera and talk about it?'" he recalled his team telling him.
"They didn't understand the importance of it," Ricky, 52, told Andy. "Now I see it. I understood before they did how important it is, not only for me, but to be a spokesperson."
He then shared that when he came out, in a letter posted on X, formerly Twitter, he felt "amazing".
"I wish I could come out 20 times, it felt amazing. I started crying like a baby," Ricky gushed.
The hitmaker shares daughter Lucia and son Renn with his now ex-husband Jwan Yosef. He also has twins Matteo and Valentino, who were born via surrogate.
