Ricky Martin: ‘I used to bully people I knew were gay’
Ricky Martin has admitted that he used to bully gay people before he came to terms with his own sexuality.
The gay Puerto Rican pop star told Australia’s GQ magazine that he was previously “very angry, very rebellious.”
Martin said: “I used to look at gay men and think, ‘I’m not like that, I don’t want to be like that, that’s not me.”
The 41-year-old added: “When you’re told you’re wrong by everyone, from society, from your faith – my self-esteem was crushed. I took my anger out on those around me.” He went onto say that, “I look back now and realise I would bully people who I knew were gay. I had internalised homophobia. To realise that was confronting to me. I wanted to get away from that.”
Since coming out in 2010, the star has become a strong advocate of LGBT rights and expressed support for equal marriage, earlier this year he called upon the Puerto Rican Governor Alejandro García Padilla to extend further rights to the territory’s gay community.
