WAS RICKY MARTIN'S CAREER DESTROYED BY BARBARA WALTERS?

Wednesday, March 10 2010 07:41

Did Barbara Walters ruin Ricky Martin's career? The "Livin' La Vida Loca" singer was at the height of his career in 2000 when he sat down with Walters for an interview. It wasn't too long after that when his career took a nose dive. During the interview, Walters asked Martin whether he was gay, and now looking back, the TV host thinks it could have contributed to the demise of his career.

She recently told the Toronto Star, "In 2000, 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."

During the 2000 interview, Walters told Martin, "You know, you could stop these rumors. You could say, as many artists have, 'Yes I am gay,' or you could say, 'No I'm not,' or you could leave it, as you are, ambiguous. I don't want to put you on the spot, but it's in your power to do it." At the time he said he didn't want to talk about it.

On Tuesday (March 9th), Martin made a cryptic Tweet, which may or may not be referring to Walters' comments. He wrote, "judging someone based on his/hers old behavior?who's stuck?"

In 2006, Walters talked about how she thought outing celebrities is wrong during a segment on The View.

Martin is a single dad with twin sons and does not comment publicly on his sexuality.

He's been working on a new album, as well as writing a book. He recently Tweeted, "Working on the manuscript of my book "editing". Had no idea how difficult this would be. consuming. But im happy with the outcome."