RICKY MARTIN

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Being granted an audience with Ricky Martin is no mean feat. There are hoops to jump through, calls to be made and many emails to be sent to his gatekeepers in Los Angeles. Usually, none of this bodes well, but when I do get to speak to the 46-year-old Latin superstar – very late at night – he couldn’t be more charming. Calm, funny and with a thick Spanish accent (he was born on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean island of Puerto Rico), Martin has once again been propelled into the nation’s consciousness, but this time as an actor, with a starring role in the hit docu-drama, The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Martin played Antonio D’amico, an Italian model and the long-term partner of fashion designer Gianni Versace who was gunned down on the steps of his Miami mansion on the 15th July 1997 by wanted serial killer Andrew Cunanan. What attracted him to the role? ‘I lived in Miami in 1997 when Gianni was killed,’ Martin tells me. ‘I had been invited to Versace’s house many times, but I had a campaign with Giorgio Armani, so I didn’t ever go. Gianni’s death really affected me. There was a lot of fear, knowing that there was a man on the run who was on the FBI’S most wanted list. Cunanan was in Miami – a very small city – he was not even hiding and still he was not caught. There was a feeling that, because this was a gay man killing another gay

man, you know, just turn the

other way. We wanted to bring light and justice to the story – Cunanan didn’t just kill Gianni Versace, there were at least four other victims.’

The show is based on the controversial book Vulgar Favours by journalist Maureen Orth, whose version of events leading up to Versace’s death has been vehemently disputed by members of the Versace family. Indeed, since airing, various people close to the deceased designer have spoken out, calling the show ‘a work of fiction’ and saying the family ‘never authorised nor had any involvement whatsoever’ with it. Was Martin daunted to be playing a real-life character in such a traumatic situation?

‘This was an amazing opportunity for me as an actor… but, of course, I felt pressure, I think everyone did,’ says Martin. ‘However, I was able to talk to Antonio D’amico a few times to prepare. He was very generous, he shared with me some specifics about his relationship with Gianni and it was beautiful to be able to talk to him. It took my performance to another level. I told Antonio that we were not doing a photo of events, we were doing a painting and by that I meant we can add colours and get rid of colours, but it is a big responsibility. When I first saw Penelope [Cruz] as Donatella [Versace], it was very powerful. Her transformation has been one of the talking points of the show. Donatella sent Penelope flowers because of the amazing job she’d done with the character.’

Despite gruelling daily starts of 5am or 6am for almost eight months, Martin says the cast hung out with each other every Sunday at a barbecue at his house. He looks in great shape in the show, and seems to have barely aged since 1999’s La Vida Loca days. How does he do it? ‘On the road, you’ve got to treat the body like you’re an athlete. I walk on stage every night for sometimes two hours, and it’s full-on cardiovascular performance, so I have to sleep and I have to eat well. We all get judged by our looks in Hollywood – women and men, and now with social media even more so – one bad picture and everyone’s commenting; “You look tired”, “You look old”... You’ve just got to go with the flow and enjoy it. I am 46 years old, I don’t want to look 35. I don’t use Botox, I like my wrinkles. I think age is a beautiful thing and I feel strong.’

One element of the Gianni Versace story that strikes a chord with Martin, he says, is the politics around being gay in the late 1990s. Having found fame at the age of 12 in Latin boyband Menudo, Martin spent years dodging questions about his sexuality before coming out in 2010, in a letter posted on Twitter.

Now married to Swedish artist Jwan Yosef, with twin nine-year-old sons, Matteo and Valentino, born by surrogate, Martin says he is ‘so happy’ but admits there are parallels between his and Versace’s struggle to be their true selves in the public eye.

‘Coming out for me was very difficult,’ Martin explains. ‘Just like Gianni,

I had people around me saying, “Are you crazy? If you come out, it will be the end of your career.” I had to deal with that for many years until I couldn’t take it no more; I sat down and I wrote a letter and I posted it on Twitter.’

Was he afraid, posting that letter, declaring himself ‘a fortunate homosexual man’?

‘Yes, I was afraid, but the amount of love that I received after I sent that letter came from every direction. I had my haters, but I learnt that you gotta love yourself, and what people think of you is none of your business. It took me a minute to get there, but I did it and if I only knew how easy and how amazing it was going to be, trust me, I would have come out much earlier. But I was afraid – the same thing that Gianni Versace went through. He wanted to come out and, even though he was an icon and owned a fashion empire, he couldn’t – or he was afraid to… That says a lot about where we were in the nineties. We lived in an era of “don’t ask don’t tell” and if Versace was afraid of coming out, imagine the fears of other people in the world? But at the end of the day, he did and [by doing so] he stopped Antonio living in the shadows, as he had been for many years.’

While he admits things have changed in the last 20 or 30 years, Martin says there is still much to be done in terms of finding LGBT equality, but he’s up for the fight. A vocal ‘human rights defender’ and a UNICEF ambassador,

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he is supportive of the #Metoo campaign and has his own eponymous charitable foundation that he set up after witnessing child sexual exploitation over a decade ago in Calcutta.

‘More than 10 years ago, I travelled to India because a friend of mine in the music business was building an orphanage. When I landed, we went straight to the slums to start rescuing girls who could be forced into prostitution. These girls were five, eight years old… I was shocked. When I got home, I realised I couldn’t stay quiet; if I did, I was allowing it to happen, so I created the Ricky Martin Foundation and for more than a decade, we’ve been rescuing sexual slaves and rehabilitating them. Right now, we have a holistic centre with 136 children at risk of human trafficking and we educate them and give them options.’

Martin’s foundation has also done a lot of work in his homeland, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria at the end of September 2017. ‘It’s frustrating that many people still have no power and no running water. It’s something I get enraged about. But we do our part and talk to generous colleagues of mine – the Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation donated, Jennifer Aniston gave a million dollars… we are making an alliance with Habitat for Humanity to start building homes as soon as possible.’

So… Ricky Martin 2.0. An actor in the middle of a four-month musical residency in Las Vegas. Given the choice between acting and singing, which would he plump for? ‘Acting has always been very important to me,’ he says. ‘I started acting when I was 15 years old with a TV series in Latin America. But I’m not ashamed to consider myself a pop star. I love performing – there’s something magical about a sold-out arena with 30,000 people singing and dancing to your music. The audience is like a drug, it’s my favourite vice. I started performing at 12 and I love what I do.

I’m still inspired to find cool rhythms and sounds to share with an audience. And, as long the audience is there, I’m going to keep giving them what they want.’

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is on BBC Two and BBC iplayer