Me (25 page)

When I was younger, I would often go alone to Europe for my birthday or New Year’s. My mother would say to me, “Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you? First of all, why do you have to go alone? And why do you have to go so far?”

And I would respond, “Mami, leave me alone. I’m fine here.”

One night I had the urge to spend the night sitting under the Eiffel Tower, and so I did. I lay down in a park in front of the tower, and at midnight, I said to myself, “Happy New Year!” I did the same thing one time for my birthday. It was amazing to feel that I was doing exactly what I wanted to do, and that I was doing it for myself and no one else.

I want my children to have experiences of all kinds. I want them to be independent and to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. I look forward to watching them each walk their own paths, on their terms, and I will support them every step of the way.

I am Puerto Rican and so are my sons. I want them to always be conscious of their roots, but more than anything, I want my children to see themselves as citizens of the world, because this is what is going to give them the global vision to be men in the twenty-first century.

I will always make every effort to give my children everything they need. But the important things in life are not material; they are experiences. I want them to have all kinds of memories, because that’s what is going to allow them to live full lives.

And since I have firsthand experience in knowing how important it is to maintain that connection with our inner child, I will do everything I can to make sure they hold on to the innocence of their youth for many years. And throughout their lives I will do everything possible to protect their integrity as human beings. I am sure that nothing that I want for my children is any different from what other parents also want for their own kids.

To my children I will say, “I want you to be happy and to always know that my love is unconditional. And that means
without conditions
. I am here for you.
No matter what.”

I want them to feel they can tell me anything and that I will listen to them and always tell them the truth. They cannot be afraid to tell me anything. They should know that whatever advice I give them will always come first from my own experience, and second from my love for them. Pure love. I’ll say to them, “I am here for you. I can tell you what the consequences will be of certain actions or decisions, and I can tell you what I think will be the consequences of doing this or that thing, based on what I have seen and lived. I can show you statistics that indicate the various effects of different choices. But I cannot decide for you.”

Ultimately, they will have to do what they want, to become who they would like to be. The truth is that it doesn’t matter how much I may love them. They will always be who they are, and I will always be me. And I cannot change who they are or how they behave; I can simply guide them in what I feel is the most appropriate direction. So many books have been written about how to be a good parent, but every child is completely unique. Each little mind is its own universe, and each child is the owner of his actions.

It doesn’t matter how much you love a person; the reality of life is that one cannot make decisions for someone else. Even if they do exactly what I say they should do, and even if they believe that they’re doing it just because I told them to, it is they who have chosen to take that path and not go off on their own. And if they only do what I tell them, they will never be able to analyze a situation, evaluate the information that is given to them, weigh the options and look at the alternatives (and they will eventually resent me). They will have to learn how to do this on their own, because I will not always be there to give them my opinion or advice.

In fact, it could be that my concept of happiness will for them be the very same definition of pain. And who am I to tell other people what it is that will make them happy? They have to discover it for themselves.

For me, that’s where the improvement of the world begins—in allowing people to be themselves, without judging them. Let me be who I am; let me live, exist, and behave how I need to according to my reality. I’ll do the same for you. I won’t get in your way. In this space of my own, I dream of my happiness. And if you don’t like it, go on your own way, because I don’t want you to be part of mine.

Ultimately, I want my children to accept themselves, to love themselves, and to accept everyone, even if someone does not accept them. I will do everything possible for my children to find their happiness, letting them know that inside we each have the ability to feel fulfilled, if we are open and attuned to the lessons that come along the way, and willing to uncover the treasure that lives within our very own beings.

They are of course too young to understand, but Matteo and Valentino have played an essential role in making me the strong and liberated person I am today. It is thanks to them that my desire to write this book came to be, and it is also thanks to them that I found the strength to choose to live life transparently and without any secrets. As my children grow up, I want them to feel perfectly free, and there will not be anything—not even their father’s life—that will affect them. They have to feel completely proud of who they are and where they come from, and I never want them to feel the need to keep a secret from me or from anyone. They are my greatest treasure, and the ones who inspire me each day to be a better person, a better father, and a better human being.

WHEN I LOOK BACK, IT’S EASY TO SEE HOW ONE THING LED
to the next, and how every moment of my life happened for a reason. But when I was in the middle of it all, looking ahead and trying to decipher the next step, it wasn’t always so easy to see. Still, today I feel that it doesn’t do any good to worry so much about what decision to make or which path to take, because ultimately life has its way of guiding me toward what I need when I need it the most. Not before, not after.

There is a time for everything. While I hit the stage early, at only twelve years of age, it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I felt comfortable with my sexuality. Everyone has their own path, their own story through which they go at their own pace.

Since I announced my sexual orientation to the world a few months ago, a lot of people have asked: “Ricky, what took you so long?” My answer is very simple: It wasn’t my moment yet. I had to go through everything I did and live through all I experienced to arrive at the exact moment when I felt strong, ready, and completely at peace to do it. I needed to love myself. And although the process I had to go through to get to this point was neither short nor simple, I had to go through—and stumble along—my spiritual path in order to find myself.

Now, would I have wanted this moment to come sooner? Of course, especially if it had saved me from all the pain and anguish I endured. But honestly, I don’t think it could have gone any differently than it did. I had to go through all this pain to really know what was inside me. I had to fall in love with both women and men, and go through each relationship to ultimately face the reality of what I was feeling. If I had decided to come out to the public when I fell in love so many years ago, it might have felt liberating at that very moment, but I am sure it would have also brought all kinds of other pain and anguish, simply due to the fact that I was not ready. The truth is that I’ll never know.

DEEP DOWN I guess I have always known that I was gay, but I still spent many years trying to hide it, even from myself. Ever since I can remember I have felt a strong attraction to men, and though I can say I have also felt a strong attraction to and chemistry with women, it is a man who ultimately awakens my most instinctual, animal self. It is with a man that I can feel myself truly come alive, where I can find the love and passion I seek in a relationship. But I spent a lot of time resisting what I felt.

We all know people who are gay and who, for some reason, have to hide this fact in their own homes because their mother or father will simply not accept it. And even though I personally have had the full support of my family and friends, for many years the idea of coming out publicly was completely inconceivable to me. There are so many social prejudices against homosexuals that I feared people would never understand me and I would be rejected, because those were the social codes that had ruled my life ever since I was a little boy. So ever since my adolescence, when I first started to feel an attraction for men, I was struggling with the great conflict between my thoughts and my feelings.

As children we are taught, we are conditioned, to feel sexual attraction toward people of the opposite sex. When you are a little boy and your parents take you to the park and you start to play with all the other children, your parents and other relatives say, “Look how pretty that little girl is. Look how cute she is. You like that little girl?” And later you start to go to school, and when you come home in the afternoons, the first thing everyone asks you is, “Do you have a girlfriend yet?” Culturally and socially, we are taught to feel sexual attraction for the opposite sex, which causes a great deal of confusion when you feel something different. In my case, I always grew up hearing that being attracted to people of the same sex was a bad thing (for this is what many religions maintain), and I began to wage a major inner battle very early on in my life, between what I really felt and what was expected of me.

That’s why I blocked it out. That’s why I rejected it and employed all of my strength to fight my very own emotions. Whenever I had an encounter with a boy and felt something strong, something that shook the earth beneath my feet, I would immediately try to erase the thought from my mind. I would say to myself, “No, this isn’t me. This was just a little adventure.” On the one hand, I don’t think I really understood what was happening to me, and on the other, I don’t think I was willing to accept the fact that I didn’t fit the image everyone had of me. After every relationship with a man I managed to bury my feelings, but with time this started to become too painful, as the contradiction was now too great.

But even though that contradiction was essentially in my head—and that is a conflict I eventually had to face—it’s also important to understand that the rest of the world is not always filled with tolerance, the way we would hope it to be. There are many people who simply do not understand that there can be people who are different from them, and even though we may want to ignore them, we must also understand that they are a factor, and an important factor at that. Not everyone can feel at peace with his or her sexuality, because external pressures are sometimes too strong. And that, in my opinion, is tragic.

I think that one of the reasons why I found it so hard to accept myself was because in my profession I have often been considered to be a Latin idol, a pop star, and for some, a sex symbol. I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that I am Latin or if it has to do with the global image of the “Latin lover,” but I always had the feeling that certain things were expected of me, among which was the fact that I was supposed to seduce—and allow myself to be seduced by—women. I look at Elton John, who is indisputably an icon, and I think it’s amazing how he has accepted his sexuality. But I am not he, and, culturally, I felt that the implications of accepting my sexuality in front of the world would be a lot more complicated. Maybe if there had been another artist, another Latin idol who had come before me, I might have been less afraid. But the reality is that I didn’t have a role model, and that, in my mind, helped make the whole thing entirely inconceivable. I don’t know if my fears were religious, cultural, or moral . . . probably a combination of the three. All I know is that for a long time, and without realizing the damage I was doing to myself, I carried around a lot of emotional baggage that precluded me from being free. From being
me
.

Looking back, I realize that throughout all of those years I lived many dark moments. I was pissed off, full of pain and self-rejection. Although on so many other levels—my career, my family, and my friends—my life was blessed with countless incredible things, there were moments when I would go to bed at night feeling the weight of the world inside as I tried to reconcile the conflicting emotions I felt. They were very painful times. It is horrible to feel you don’t love yourself, and I honestly don’t wish it upon anyone.

But like everything in life, pain also brings about growth. On my spiritual journey and my travels through India, and with everything I learned in my struggle against human trafficking, slowly but surely I began to find acceptance. I had to learn how to look deep inside my soul to listen to the silence and find my truth—my pure truth, free of all external pressures, expectations, wishes, and rejections. I had to learn to see and love myself exactly as I am. Now, not only can I tell the truth, but I can also talk about my pain and anger that I see as such an injustice—and not only the injustice of human trafficking, but also the injustice felt by anyone who is being judged by others. I had to understand that in the world there are people who are going to love you for who you are, and those who will want you to be exactly like them; and this simple realization hit me hard. If I don’t love myself and if I hide and deny my own self, how can I expect other people to love me for who I really am? It took me a very long time to understand this.

IT WAS APPROXIMATELY five years ago when I understood and felt deep down in the bottom of my soul that I was finally ready to accept my truth. I’d had plenty of time to think, to fall in and out of love, and to live through everything that I had to live through. Until then, even though I knew it deep down in my soul, I didn’t own it, and I didn’t feel the need to tell it to the rest of the world. On the one hand, I felt that it was nobody’s business but my own, and on the other hand, I simply didn’t see how it was going to change anything. Despite the fame, and although I do seem to live a very public life, the truth is that I live my personal life very privately, surrounded by my family and the close friends that I consider family as well, most of whom have known me for decades. And since everyone in my environment already knew and accepted my truth, I didn’t feel the need to tell anyone else. Besides, the fact that everything had to be done in secrecy spiced things up a bit and gave a sense of intrigue to the relationships that, I must confess, I kind of liked.