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and adored grandson of my grandparents to being an international star who traveled the world giving concerts on some of the most important stages on the planet. Naturally, there were moments when I felt lost and would have liked to have my mother or father around to comfort me. During the whole time I was in Menudo, they were always concerned about me and we talked very often, but of course, that was not always enough. I remember, for example, once when we were on tour in Brazil, I called my mother one night and said, “Mami, I can’t take it anymore. I’m so exhausted, I want to come home.”
    She consoled me however she could and said: “My son, if this is what you want, don’t worry. Tomorrow we will talk to the lawyers and arrange everything so that you can come home.” But right away she added: “Right now it is too late at night to do it, but if this is what you want, I will call the lawyer first thing in the morning.”
    After speaking to her I calmed down and was able to fall asleep and get some much-needed rest. In fact, by the following morning I had completely forgotten about what was bothering me the day before. I called my mother very early the next day and said: “Mami, I’m fine now! Don’t worry. Don’t call the lawyers. Everything is fine.”
    My mother’s attitude was what made me feel so much better. If I had decided to leave Menudo at that moment, things would have been pretty complicated. I would have probably gotten sued for breach of contract, and the news would have exploded in the media. People would have asked me all sorts of questions and rumors would have started as to why a band member was leaving the group when everything seemed to be going so great. . . . I realize now that it would have been a huge deal. But no matter the consequences, my mother was willing to deal with the whole thing. All she wanted was for me to stop sounding as upset as I sounded over the phone.
    And so I forged ahead. Just like every other person who has to wake up in the morning and go to work, of course I had my moments of weakness and anxiety, but the euphoria that was always going on around me kept pushing me forward. I knew I was living through something extraordinary, and as tired as I may have been sometimes, I didn’t want to miss a thing.

CONNECTING WITH OTHER KIDS
    IT WAS THANKS to all the hard work I was doing that I had the opportunity to have so many amazing experiences and meet so many amazing people, a connection I felt with even more clarity when, for example, we became UNICEF ambassadors. The band managers wanted to make the most of our trips around the world, so in our roles as ambassadors we would invite underprivileged children—who lived a reality that was very different from ours—to our shows. Many times they were orphans, or homeless children living on the street who had faced intense hardship in their lives at a very young age.
    In those days, I think our smallest concert was for an audience of about 70,000 people. We also had the world record of 200,000 people in attendance for our concert in the Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo. But when it came to spending time with these children and bringing a little bit of joy into their lives, all the glamour of the private jets, having entire hotels to ourselves, private chefs, personal bodyguards, tutors, assistants, and so on—all of this ceased to exist. The organizers would say to us, “Hold on for a second; now we are going to spend time with children who are no more or no less than you. They simply live a very different reality than yours.” And the chance to be able to spend time with those children was one of the most valuable experiences that Menudo ever gave me. I learned to see life from another perspective, to comprehend what is truly meaningful and what is not—a lesson that is beyond important for an adolescent living in the world of luxury and abundance.
    I truly began to understand how many children live in other parts of the