Ricky Martin is the cover star
of People Magazine's Pride Issue, and the Latin legend revealed
that he has "a little PTSD" from that infamous interview with Barbara
Walters.
The year was
2000, and rumors had already been swirling about Martin's sexuality but he had
never publicly addressed them. Walters presented Martin with the gossip,
declaring that moment to be the time where he “could stop these rumors.”
“You could
say, ‘Yes I am gay or no I’m not,'” said Walters.
Martin,
visibly uncomfortable, replied, “Barbara, for some reason, I just don’t feel
like it.”
According
to People, the moment still haunts him. "When she dropped the
question, I felt violated because I was just not ready to come out. I was very
afraid. There's a little PTSD with that."
Knowing what he knows now, would he do it differently? "Well, maybe I would have come out in that interview," said Martin. "It would've been great because when I came out, it just felt amazing. When it comes to my sexuality, when it comes to who I am, I want to talk about what I'm made of, about everything that I am. Because if you hide it, it's a life-or-death situation."
In 2010,
Walters told the Toronto Star she regretted the way the
interview went down.
“I pushed
Ricky Martin very hard to admit if he was gay or not, and the way he refused to
do it made everyone decide that he was. A lot of people say that destroyed his
career, and when I think back on it now, I feel it was an inappropriate
question.”
SOURCE: PRIDE DOT COM
Actually, what he should have done in that moment is point out just how low Walter's standards as a journalist had become. Gotcha moments are BS journalism. And how dare she take such a serious, personal matter and try to profit from it. Reprehensible. Walters was a terrible human being only interested in furthering her career. What a terrible thing to have done to anyone.
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