Ricky Martin came out after his dad told him something important

Pop superstar Ricky Martin shared the reason why he came out in 2010 at the age of 38. Until then, he has previously said, he avoided even platonic relationships with men to try to keep fans from realizing he is gay.

After the birth of his sons Matteo and Valentino, his dad had a fatherly talk with the singer and told him something important.

Related: Watch an adorable Ricky Martin star in Burger King & Orange Crush commercials as a child

Before Ricky Martin was livin’ la vida loca, the out gay pop star was an accidental child actor.

Martin’s dad, a psychologist, sat him down for a heart-to-heart about parents’ roles with their children and pointed out a hard truth: if he stayed in the closet, he would ask his children to keep up the charade.

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“Rick, you need to come out,” his father told him. “What are you going to teach your kids, to lie?”

Martin’s management team, however, wasn’t as enthusiastic, telling him, ‘You don’t need to share, everybody knows around you, you don’t have to tell the world – your friends know, your family knows, why do you need to stand in front of the camera and talk about it?'”

“They didn’t understand the importance of it,” Martin said on the Andy Cohen Live Sirius XM show. “Now I see it. I understood before they did how important it is, not only for me, but to be a spokesperson.”

“I wish I could come out 20 times. It felt amazing. I started crying like a baby.”

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