Troye Sivan Comes Out

Thanks to a post by Kyle Leach, who had the wonderful blog Out Left, I got to see this truly amazing video from an incredible 18-year-old young man. Troye Sivan might be best known for his portrayal of Young James in the film 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'. He also played the role of John 'Spud' Milton the 2010 film 'Spud', as well as the 2013 sequel, 'Spud 2: The Madness Continues'. The young actor, who also has a popular YouTube channel where he often posts videos about himself, took the opportunity to come out to his YouTube followers and fans. In the video, Troye shows such wonderful insight, and a beautiful honesty that truly made me totally engaged in his video.

Troye has such a charm, and seems to be such a smart thinking young man, I can't help but have faith in the future. I wish him all the luck in the world, but don't think he'll need it. He is a young man who has a strong core, worth celebrating. Beneath the video, he also offers links to The Trevor Project, TrevorSpace, Human Rights Campaign, Minus18, and GLAAD, all organization offering up a resource to LGBT Youth. Welcome to the family, Troye!

Ricky Martin - The Best Thing About Me Is You

Well, my pretend husband gave his first interview since coming out and professing his love for me. He chose to go on Oprah for the festivities, and while I missed seeing the show myself, I did manage to catch it on YouTube. I am so grateful for those who make things like this available. The interview was rather beautiful, really, and was able to surprise me with some of the detail in which Ricky talks about his life. I remember being there, the times of self-loathing because society was telling me I was wrong, evil even. It does take time to process the whole thing, to figure out how to get comfortable with yourself before you can really get honest with yourself and everyone around you. And the 'at home' footage with his kids are just too precious. But I thought this might be a perfect chance to run a clip of Ricky performing his latest single, The Best Thing About Me Is You, a duet with the gorgeous Joss Stone.



In his tour, he was also scheduled to stop by The View, and I found this clip online, and thought I would run it as well. When I first saw it, it did bring a tear to my eye.



You can pick up Ricky's single on iTunes here or on Amazon here. Both are running $1.29 for the single. I have, of course, purchased it, and really like it. I hope he'll have a great time with it, and it will be getting good radio play. After all, Papi got twins to feed. A big part of this press tour is the promotion of his book, Me, which was just released. You can find it on Amazon here. And, of course, you can check out his official website here.

Welcome To The Club, Ricky Martin

I would imagine I am going to be one of thousands of blogs who will be featuring Ricky Martin today. Some will be kind and celebratory, while others will be smug and unkind. Count me among the celebrating bloggers who are happy to welcome Ricky to the club, and grateful he felt confident enough in his own life to make the announcement now. I am going to run a few excepts from the personal statement found on his website. He started out talking about writing his memoirs, and needing to get to the truth of his life. Then it got disappointing, for the advice he was being given.

Many people told me: "Ricky it's not important", "it's not worth it", "all the years you've worked and everything you've built will collapse", "many people in the world are not ready to accept your truth, your reality, your nature". Because all this advice came from people who I love dearly, I decided to move on with my life not sharing with the world my entire truth. Allowing myself to be seduced by fear and insecurity became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sabotage. Today I take full responsibility for my decisions and my actions.
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These years in silence and reflection made me stronger and reminded me that acceptance has to come from within and that this kind of truth gives me the power to conquer emotions I didn't even know existed.

What will happen from now on? It doesn't matter. I can only focus on what's happening to me in this moment. The word "happiness" takes on a new meaning for me as of today. It has been a very intense process. Every word that I write in this letter is born out of love, acceptance, detachment and real contentment. Writing this is a solid step towards my inner peace and vital part of my evolution.

I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.

RM

That, my friends, was a well-thought and written coming out. It let the reader in on some of the pressures, and why he made the decision. I remember being there, and how frightened and alone I was. I was in college, surrounded by people, and still isolated. Of course I knew I was gay before I came out, but figuring how to do it was tough. And I didn't have packs of photographers following me everywhere. The honesty in his message, that is a beautiful and sexy thing. The smug and mean reaction by many when the news broke? Not pretty nor hot in the slightest. That said, welcome to the LGBT community, Ricky, and get used to it. We still seem to have a hard time sticking together and supporting one another. As loath as I am to admit it, as a group we tend to be reenacting Mart Crowley's Boys In The Band far more often than we are Craig Lucas' Longtime Companion. After seeing the disrespect of this and the coming out of Sean Hayes, I have to wonder why anyone would want to come out.

So here are some music videos done by the incomparable Ricky Martin. Indeed, I am a longtime fan, and it is just another reason to post some more videos. Enjoy.

Maria from 1995


Nobody Wants To Be Lonely from 2001


Jaleo from 2003