Ricky Martin and his husband of six years, Jwan Yosef, have announced that they are divorcing.
The former couple, who first met through Instagram in 2015, confirmed their separation in a joint statement to People.
They said: “We have decided to end our marriage with love, respect and dignity for our children and honouring what we have experienced as a couple all these wonderful years.
“Our greatest desire now is to continue having a healthy family dynamic and a relationship centred on peace and friendship to continue the joint upbringing of our children, preserving the respect and love we have for each other.”
The “Livin La Vida Loca” singer, 51, and the Syrian-Swedish artist, 38, share two children, five-year-old daughter Lucia and four-year-old son Renn. Both children were born via surrogate.
Martin is also father to 15-year-old twins Matteo and Valentino, who he had through a single-father surrogacy process and will continue to be a single parent to them.
The Puerto Rican singer began dating Yosef six months after they connected on Instagram, following an in-person meeting in London.
They went public with their relationship at the 2016 amFAR Inspiration Gala when they appeared on the red carpet together. That same year, they got engaged and were married by 2018.
In 2020, Martin opened up about how his sexuality made him afraid that he would never become a father.
Jwan Yosef and Ricky Martin attend the screening of "Elvis" during the 75th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 25, 2022— (Getty Images)
In an interview with Out magazine, he said: “Many years I dreamt of being a father, and many, many, many times I went through this grieving process of, ‘I am gay, I am a closeted gay man, and I’m not going to be able to be a daddy’.”
He also spoke about why he decided to use a surrogate in order to make his dream of becoming a father come true.
“Obviously adoption is an option and it’s very beautiful, but unfortunately for gay men it’s very difficult to adopt in some countries,” he said.
The “King of Latin Pop” has also spoken out about his desire to “normalise families like mine”, in which both parents are of the same gender.
In an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2021, he said he was “very happy” and added: “Every time I have the opportunity to… talk about my family and let the world know that we’re good people, and how we feel and love is really – I just want to normalise families like mine.”
He said that receiving messages from people thanking him for posting photos of his family have “made me feel better about myself”.
Martin chose to keep his sexuality a secret at the height of his career in the late Nineties. He came out publicly in 2011, when he published his memoir Me: Ricky Martin.
Opening up about the decision to come out, Martin told Proud Radio on Apple Music: “I got to the place I was fighting as I was writing my book between saying, ‘Am I gay? Am I bisexual? Am I gay? Am I bisexual?,’”
“And either is okay, just go within and do not lie to yourself. And then I said, ‘Rick, you are a very fortunate homosexual man. You are gay.’ And I wrote it and I pressed send, and then I cried like crazy. And I’ve been super happy ever since.”
Yosef, an accomplished award-winning artist, opened his new studio in Los Angeles this year. Meanwhile, Martin is set to star in Apple TV+’s forthcoming period comedy Palm Royale, featuring alongside Kristen Wiig and Laura Dern.
