Singer Ricky Martin says he struggled
for years with his sexual orientation before he could tell the world
he's gay.
The 39-year-old father of twin boys
Valentino and Matteo came out as a “fortunate homosexual man”
last year.
“I was the sex symbol and I needed to
dance and I needed to make girls crazy and I couldn't say that I was
gay,” Martin
said during an appearance on Tuesday's edition of the late night talk
show Tonight
Show with Jay Leno.
Living a lie “was a lot of struggle,”
he told Leno. “If you add to that … culture, religion, society,
what people say. What I was feeling, according to what I had in my
mind, was evil.”
“And I'm very lucky today to say I'm
gay, and I love it, and I'm very happy,” he added to thunderous
applause.
Martin, however, has been attacked for
dropping the charade of being straight in his home territory of
Puerto Rico. A
Catholic cardinal asked Martin to stop promoting being gay, while
a
pastor said he was leading Puerto Rico to “hell.”