Gay pop star and actor Ricky Martin recently opened up about the challenges gay men face today, saying it feels like we have returned to a time decades in the past.

He made the comments while speaking about the Apple TV dramedy Palm Royale, in which Martin plays a Korean War veteran and country club employee, Robert, who is also a closeted gay man.

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“This is a story of a man, a gay man in [the] late ’60s,” Martin told USA Today, “but unfortunately, we’re dealing with the same fears and the uncertainty and… with the rejection today.”

“Here in America, we’re having to hide again,” he added. “And it’s really sad… It’s crazy that we’re talking about this story of the ’60s, but it’s so relevant.”

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The anti-LGBTQ+ movement has endured both a political and grassroots resurgence since the current administration took office. While trans people have been at the center of the crusade, stigma against all LGBTQ+ people is rising, and their rights are in jeopardy.

In fact, a report released last month by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found a huge increase in anti-LGBTQ+ hate, threats, and violence in the U.S., U.K., and Europe, which researchers frame as a backlash to twenty years of positive progress.

Martin has been open about his sexuality since he came out in 2010 at the age of 38. Until then, he previously said, he avoided even platonic relationships with men to try to keep fans from realizing he is gay.

After the birth of his sons Matteo and Valentino, his dad had a fatherly talk with the singer and told him something important.

Martin’s dad, a psychologist, sat him down for a heart-to-heart about parents’ roles with their children and pointed out a hard truth: if he stayed in the closet, he would ask his children to keep up the charade.

“Rick, you need to come out,” his father told him. “What are you going to teach your kids, to lie?”

Martin’s management team, however, wasn’t as enthusiastic, telling him, ‘You don’t need to share, everybody knows around you, you don’t have to tell the world – your friends know, your family knows, why do you need to stand in front of the camera and talk about it?’”

“They didn’t understand the importance of it,” Martin said on the Andy Cohen Live Sirius XM show. “Now I see it. I understood before they did how important it is, not only for me, but to be a spokesperson.”

“I wish I could come out 20 times. It felt amazing. I started crying like a baby.”

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