Inside Ricky Martin's Private Family World as a Father of 4

Super Bowl 2026: Bad Bunny Brings Out Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin as Surprise Guests at Halftime

Watching the reception for Ricky Martin when he showed up as a surprise guest during Bad Bunny's Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, it's hard to imagine the Puerto Rican icon ever feeling afraid to put his true self forward.

But such was the road the "Livin' La Vida Loca" singer traveled, first as a member of boy band Menudo, then as a chart-topping solo artist who helped define what it meant to be a bilingual crossover star in the 1990s.

And it was the path he stayed on until he became a dad, first to twins Matteo and Valentino in 2008, then daughter Lucia in 2018 and son Renn in 2019, all via surrogate. For years he chose not to address rampant rumors about his personal life or otherwise give definitive answers to now-archaic questions about his sexuality.

"Before I decided to become a father, I already accepted who I was and I was happy with who I was," he told Oprah Winfrey in his first interview after coming out in 2010. "And when I was holding my children, I said, 'OK. it's time to tell the world.'"

"The real problem was that I myself didn't know how I felt about the subject," he wrote in his 2010 memoir Me, in which he detailed his years-in-the-making decision to come out and stressed that he had been much in love with longtime girlfriend Rebecca de Alba when they were together, that it wasn't a partnership for show. "Even though I had relationships with men after separating from my first love, I still was not ready to accept myself as gay. My moment had still not arrived, and even though we all know now that the rumors were based on truth, the reality was that in my mind it was still not a fact." 

Having defied all of his own doubts and fears, Martin has since become a beacon of inspiration to countless people, especially among the Latinx LGBTQ+ community. 

From when he was a single dad of two taking Matteo and Valentino on the road with him—"I have sons who are warriors and who were born on tour and don’t know anything else," he told Billboard in 2015—to being a father of four who considered adding to that number ("I have a couple of embryos waiting for me," he quipped to Entertainment Tonight in 2020), Martin's life has revolved around his family.

When he was honored with the inaugural Latin Icon Award at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards, Martin dedicated it to his kids, saying, "Matteo, Valentino, Lucia and Renn, everything I do, I do it with you in my mind and in my heart."

And while all four have grown up with front-row seats to the intricacies of show business, music lovers Valentino and Matteo, now 17, have become two of their dad's closest advisors.

Valentino will take notes during his concerts, Martin said on SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live in 2024, "and he comes and tells me, 'Something happened with the dancers.'" Matteo would chime in too, especially if the prospect of being embarrassed was on the table.

"He's like, 'No, dad, you cannot do that,'" Martin said. "'No dabbing. That's not cool anymore.'"

But the musician cherished that, even though he'd reached "the moment where you're not cool anymore," his teenagers still wanted to hang out.

"They want to stay with me," Martin said. "They don't want to go anywhere."

And maybe the rapturous reception their Papi received during the Super Bowl moved the needle just a bit as far as his coolness factor goes.

Read on for some super-sweet glimpses into Martin's vida de familia: