OMG: Was everyone in Menudo gay?

Word comes today via Boy Culture that one of the original Menudo boyband members was gay.

No, not Ricky Martin. That's old news. It's Angelo Garcia, a boybandmate of Ricky's, who has since buffed up a little bit and, most recently, posed naked for erotic gay site Paragon Men (subscription required for what I assume are nude shots and video).

The semi-scoop comes from the June 8th print edition of TV Notas, a Spanish language tabloid sold in Latin America and the United States.

According to Boy Culture:
In the piece, he says he's never been closeted: "I'm very honest about who I am, but I don't like labels...people need to understand that someone's sexuality doesn't make the person. I'm more than that, a son, brother a musician..." But I believe he is confirming his identity publicly for the first time on the heels of appearing nude in a gay magazine.

He says he wasn't surprised when Ricky Martin came out, though he never saw Martin with a man or woman and assumed he was asexual (and no, they never fucked—he was 10 when Martin was 18, y'all). Martin had his own private room apart from the others.

Garcia theorizes their manager might have thought Martin was gay and kept him from his impressionable bandmates, or Martin may have had a private room as a perk since he was the eldest Menudo.
Paragon Men, which offers free access to some of the non-nudie shots on this page, also posted an English-language interview with Garcia back in April in which he actually said he was gay but, few, I guess, noticed at the time.  From that interview (italics mine):
Q: Since your on-camera interview with Jesse (filmed last month), Ricky Martin has officially "come-out", so let's move beyond your diplomatic comments on his life in the closet since Menudo. What do you think about his decision to come out? Is there anything you'd like to add to what you said earlier?

For all of us, discovering our sexuality is a process. None of us hits puberty knowing exactly where we fall on the spectrum of sexuality. We fantasize, we explore erotica and porn, we masturbate, we fuck, and we gradually get to know who we are sexually. I've never been in the closet and I've never lied about my sexuality. I believe in being honest with myself and others. I'm a very sexual person and I love sex with men. I've never told anyone anything different.

I can't speak for Ricky, and I don't know what his life was like after we parted ways. I'm glad that he's come out. It's better for him to stop hiding, and it's better for all of us. If every gay singer, actor, governor, lawyer, doctor, judge, teacher, athlete, senator, whatever would just come out and admit that he or she is gay, then the straight world would realize that being gay doesn't mean we are flawed. We were born with this other way of expressing love. It is neither better nor worse that being straight. It is just who we are.

Of course, I knew that Ricky was gay, but I would never "out" anyone. I know he seems to have a wonderful family now and to be comfortable in his own skin. What more could anyone want? He's a talented performer, and his being homosexual doesn't diminish that in any way. I am hopeful that the openly gay Ricky Martin will be as successful as the closeted Ricky Martin, and I wish him well.
As for his career,  Angelo Garcia has released a solo album titled "Cool".  I'm not sure if I dig "Dámelo", which I found on YouTube. There is also a lipsynched performance of "Cariño Presumido" on Puerto Rican TV.

But head over to his personal website, and listen to the couple of tracks you can stream on the site and they are much better including what seems to be the movie's title track, "Cool", an ode against fundamentalist religion.

He tells TV Notas and Paragon Men he is working on new material for an upcoming release.

Related:
  • Angelo's Facebook Fan page here
  • Angelo's MySpace page here
  • Angelo's Twitter feed here  
Previously: