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   Before Ricky Martin was “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” members of his   
   former boy band Menudo — one of the biggest Latin groups of all   
   time — were living a nightmare.   
      
   In a new documentary, Angelo Garcia — who joined Menudo just   
   after he had turned 11 — said he was raped during his 1988-90   
   stint with the quintet. He details the sexual assault — which he   
   said took place in his hotel room after he was given alcohol by   
   an undisclosed man — in “Menudo: Forever Young,” a four-part   
   docuseries that premieres on HBO Max Thursday.   
      
   “All I remember was that I, like, passed out. When I woke up, I   
   was naked and I was bleeding, so I knew that I had been   
   penetrated,” Garcia said in the documentary. “I had, like, these   
   burn marks on my face from the rug … I was very confused and I   
   didn’t understand.”   
      
   That wasn’t the only time Garcia said he was molested during his   
   tenure with the group. “During my time in Menudo, I was raped a   
   series of times, and that was the way that predators would take   
   advantage of me,” he said in the documentary.   
      
   Other members of Menudo — which featured 32 different boys   
   during its initial 20-year run — also claimed they endured   
   sexual abuse, as well as bullying, drug scandals and oppressive   
   working conditions in “Forever Young.” Such negligence and   
   exploitation, they said, took place while they worked for the   
   boy band’s mastermind, Edgardo Díaz, who is described as “their   
   manager, producer and father surrogate.” (Díaz, who did not   
   respond to requests for an interview or comment on the   
   allegations in the documentary, has always denied any abuse and   
   any wrongdoing in his management of the group.)   
      
   “We were pawns of his business,” said Ray Acevedo, who was in   
   Menudo from 1985 to 1988.   
      
   “Forever Young” recounts how Díaz’s brainchild, Menudo, was born   
   in Puerto Rico in 1977. Díaz adopted a “Fountain of Youth   
   strategy” for the group, where members would be replaced once   
   they turned 16. Parents of the boys — many of them poor — would   
   sign over much of their parental authority to the manager.   
      
   After first exploding in Venezuela and going on to cause   
   “Spanish Beatlemania” in the US, Menudo found its most famous   
   member, Martin, in 1984. “Ricky, from the beginning, was like   
   the golden kid,” says Acevedo.   
      
   But Martin — who is not interviewed in the documentary — didn’t   
   make life so easy for other members, according to Sergio Blass,   
   who was in Menudo from 1986 to 1990.   
      
   “To be with Ricky was brutal because he had seniority over me,”   
   Blass said. “So if someone knocked on the door, I had to open   
   it. If the phone rang, I had to pick it up. I was like his   
   housewife.” (Representatives for Martin did not respond to The   
   Post’s request for comment.)   
      
   Indeed, there was plenty of bullying in Menudo — Acevedo even   
   recalled being held over a balcony by another member — and   
   hazing of new guys. Without getting proper supervision and even   
   security, the boys were also exposed to drugs, including   
   marijuana and cocaine.   
      
   “One time we were in Colombia,” recalled Blass in the   
   documentary. “I’m with [fellow Menudo member] Rubén [Gómez], and   
   we’re getting to the hotel. We enter our room. All of a sudden,   
   this random guy comes in … And he pulls out what must have been   
   about a kilo of cocaine … So we freaked out, because we didn’t   
   know this person … But the guy was actually one of the producers   
   and promoters.”   
      
   Blass and Gómez got kicked out of Menudo after they were busted   
   for marijuana possession in 1990. But new members kept coming   
   through the revolving door.   
      
   Andy Blázquez, who was in the group from 1991 to 1997, recalled   
   in the documentary feeling uncomfortable with the “extreme   
   sexualization that happened from the very beginning — like   
   overly sexualized jokes that you shouldn’t say in front of   
   children. I remember Edgardo saying, ‘You know the pleasure that   
   you get when you’re pooping? That’s what anal sex feels like.’ ”   
      
   Other members have previously accused Díaz of sexual abuse,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)