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Ecuadorian heartthrob, actor and model Roberto Manrique has come out publicly as a gay man.
Manrique, 42, the star of the popular telenovelas Doña Bárbara, Victorinos and El Clon, took to Instagram on Saturday to share heartfelt news with his fans.
“It had never seemed important to me to say that I am homosexual because I really considered that it is irrelevant, that there are other aspects of who I am and that is the priority,” Manrique explained in the video. “Robertito [Little Robert] grew up in a world that did not allow him to be who he was, when even crying was not of men, that vulnerability was not worthy, let alone the fact that I liked men and that I felt, since I can remember, that there was something in me that was wrong.”
Related: Pro cyclist Clay Davies comes out, says it took “nearly dying” to speak his truth
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Manrique then went on to clarify that he has long been open about his sexuality to his friends and family, and has long since let go of the feelings of shame and guilt that made him scared as a young man. He also revealed that he has a long-term boyfriend as well.
“I have a beautiful partner, I have a beautiful boyfriend,” he added. “I have been in love for seven years, in an incredible relationship. They cannot imagine how we have grown, how we have driven ourselves. He is an amazing man who works in activism. It has been my support from a distance.”
Congratulations Roberto. Also, for any Americans unfamiliar with his work, we hereby include some of Manrique’s credentials below:
DarkZephyr
*Fanning self* That is a beautiful man.
Bengali
Uh oh. His shoulders could be mistaken for those of Channing Tatum. All those sprinkles. They need to be lessened and moved to the bridge of his nose. Duh.
barryaksarben
Beautiful man
Henreid
The best picture was saved for last. The final black & white pic of Roberto: perfect ratios of muscle, facial hair, body hair, and body fat. Manrique is smoldering hot.
mateo
At the risk of sounding pedantic, I have to mention that, as someone who does Spanish to English translations professionally, whoever translated this guy’s comments needs to learn how to do it correctly. Very rarely should a phrase be translated literally, but rather, the translator needs to find a natural way to say the same thing in the language into which he or she is translating. Case in point: “…crying was not of men”. Do I understand what he’s saying? Sure. In Spanish he’s speaking perfectly: “Llorar no era de los hombres”. But it comes off sounding stilted in English. The translator SHOULD have written “Real men weren’t supposed to cry “. There are some other phrases which are quite mangled as well.
nm4047
you think there is an actual person doing the translation! It’s reasonable to assume based on this interpretation it’s google translate, which does literally just translate words not re-create grammatically.
Kangol2
I’ve commented on this in the past. Even a little bit of effort would go a long way, but I assume Queerty doesn’t have anyone who speaks or reads Spanish on staff, which results in the translations we see here.
PollyDarton
He seems nice. I wish I knew who he was, though.