Ricky Martin: 1971—: Singer, Actor

In 1984, after three auditions, the 12-year old landed a spot in the Latin boy-band Menudo. The band's manager, Edgardo Diaz, said of Martin in Time, "He was small, not a big singer, and his voice was not so good then. But we thought he could learn a lot by being with the group." Martin toured with Menudo as a lead singer over the next five years, performing across the globe, singing in various languages, and learning much about the music industry. He told Gloria Estefan in Interview magazine, "It was five years of discipline … That band definitely helped me keep my feet on the ground." It also made him a teenage millionaire.

Throughout his early teen years, Martin spent most of his time rehearsing, reportedly up to 16 hours a day, and recorded and toured nine months out of the year. Although the band itself was very popular, some of Menudo's former members publicly complained about their experience. In a 1998 interview with Entertainment Weekly, an ex-member described his time with the band as "abusive, exploitative, and unsavory." Although Martin himself did not claim such, he did complain that the members' own musical compositions were rejected by management. "Our creativity was stifled," he told People magazine. "We were told [the songs we wrote] were no good."

Constant touring with Menudo also strained Martin's relationship with his family. Although his parents had joint custody, they clashed over the little time each had to spend with him. Martin said in People, "When my dreams started coming true, my parents started fighting. I had everything I ever wanted, but my family was falling apart." Martin added that his father "wanted me to choose between him and my mother. How do you ask a child that?" According to People, in 1985 Martin "so resented his father that they became estranged and he changed his name from Enrique [to Ricky]." Nearly a decade later in 1994, father and son reconciled.