By: Al Ballesteros
Photos by: Anthony Rocco Pavese Jr. – IG: @pressthatp, Dillon Blake Wright – IG: @dillonblakephotography, Andre Solórzano – IG: @andresolorzanony
Wardrobe: Bradley Mounce – IG: @bradleymounce. Hair: Rick Wellman – IG: @rickwellman
It all begins in a timeless 1996 photograph of a young child, a three year-old boy affectionately holding a Selena Barbie doll he had gotten from a pile of wrapped gifts at a children’s party. Presumably because it was a “girls toy” the boy’s parents and others tried to take the doll away. But the little boy would not give it up and so the adults let him keep it, at least for a little while.
That child was Michael Miguel and today at the age of 30 he is the writer and singer of the songs on the EP Gemini Season Part One: Michael, available on all streaming platforms. The EP includes the remake of his song Boys and Barbies comprised of lyrics written from real life feelings and memories of his growing up different than others. Michael recently finished taping the second season of the mini series Go Go on Here TV where he plays Franky the lead role.
A rising star in our community Michael’s career is one of evolving music and acting. Along the way, there have been many challenges, highs and lows. We spoke with him about growing up the boy in the photo and his experience being raised in a very religious family, getting kicked out of the house, his alcohol and drug use and falling into being sex trafficked.
Michael is of Colombian and Puerto Rican descent and from a family with 13 siblings. He was born in New York City in Flushing Queens. He says he bought his first three music CDs of the artists Aaliyah, Destiny’s Child and the Soundtrack from the movie Titanic at a Flea Market. Quite a diverse mix for a guy that grew up listening to Alejandro Fernández music his mother played and which he sang to when he was two years old.
He was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in a very religious and strict Latino family. He says he could not sing, act, or do anything like that because of the religion. For sure, that was especially hard for a gay kid. He was eventually kicked out of the house at age 18 and life got real difficult when he got involved with the wrong person who introduced him to drugs and who moved him to a different state and city where he was sex-trafficked. He would eventually break away from that person and that life and got off the drugs and alcohol. But the loss of a dear friend threw him back down into the depths of depression and a relapse.
It was music that led him back to focusing on his life and future and the writing of songs that began to turn things around. Later, he would start producing his songs and eventually he ended up getting the lead character role on Here TV’s Mini Series Go Go and the recent released of his EP Gemini Season Part One: Michael. Michael Miguel is not only a rising star but he has an amazing story to tell about how he has gotten to this place in his life and career.
Adelante: Tell us what it was like growing up in a very religious family?
Miguel: It was really tough. I’m grateful for the therapy and sobriety I have today, which allows me to look back and dissect and understand the trauma I experienced. My being different was tough on my family as well, remember, this was in the 1990s so they almost did not know better. The environment was a closed type of society where we had to be with just the Jehovah’s Witnesses and not with others.
The Witnesses would criticize the way I walked, they way I talked and the mannerisms I had were called out by my family and members of the church. As a kid you don’t realize how damaging that abuse can be. It got to a point where I didn’t want to be gay and I felt tremendous guilt about those feelings. I truly believed it was wrong to be who I was.
Adelante: That sounds rough. Does one ever get over that experience?
Michael: Yes, it was very hard. My mother and family believe in Paradise when one passes from this life, and I thought I would not make it to that place because of who I was, and the desires I had. I was constantly fighting who I was. Today, I kind of feel very grateful that I got kicked out and left because I began to find myself and come to terms with who I was. It wasn’t just being gay, but in my household and the church, I was not able to sing, or have the aspiration to be a singer or an actor. It wasn’t allowed.
Michael: Then at 19 when I had sex for the first time with a man I was so consumed with guilt. I confessed it. The Church and my family felt I was not fully repentant so I was shunned from everyone. Members of the Church were not allowed to communicate with me, or make eye contact. The only way to break that shunning or punishment was to continue with church studies by going three times a week and do a one-year reevaluation to ensure that I was living by the rules. Only then would the shunning be lifted. That was asking a lot.
Adelante: When you left the church and your family, was it hard to find another network of social support?
Michael: That was a huge struggle because my whole life was the religion. My family also moved locations several times, and the only consistent thing I had was the religion. And the friendships I made in it. When I left, my family and church friends would not answer phone calls, they blocked me. We had just moved to Miami so I really did not have friends. I made it to the gay bars, like Palace in Miami and I saw a drag show for the first time and it was amazing.
I started making friends, but it was a cultural shock to not be in the ‘church bubble’. Then to try to make ties and connections with others who are grown adults, especially in the gay community where there is a lot of sassiness; you know a lot of us tend to still live in high school. I think that is what eventually led me to drugs and alcohol.
Adelante: When you left home, what was your knowledge of the larger gay community?
Michael: Super limited. Growing up, I saw maybe one gay show on TV, I think it was Noah’s Arc and I knew in New York City there were gay men. But I had no real concept of what the community looked like. It was liberating at first. I got to be who I was but it was hard to make ties. It wasn’t until after rehab that I found a community that I call my chosen family and that is what I’m grateful for.
Adelante: What substances did you use?
Michael: Alcohol and drugs. I met an older guy that introduced me to this world. He happened to be a sex trafficker. When you don’t have anyone, or any people to turn to it can be an unfortunate recipe to get into the drug scene. It got very dark. It’s hard for me to share about those times, but I do it because I know this is happening to other young people. Maybe sharing this can help someone.
Adelante: You were going through a lot. Were you self-medicating for depression or anxiety?
Michael: For sure. It becomes a way to self medicate. Substances stimulate the brain and one can go from a normal level to a super high level and then back down below zero. When I’d be having difficult days, feeling very low, I’d use substances because I knew it would pick me up and make me feel better. But alcohol and substances are very short lived for this purpose. It is short-lived happiness followed by great pain and lows. And it’s not real.
Adelante: How did you get out of it? How long has it been?
Michael: It’s a journey and I started working at it eight years ago. When in Alabama and to get away from the sex trafficker, I found a public library and was able to look up a friend, Jason and he bought me a plane ticket to get out of there. When I got back home, my dad helped get me to rehab. I met other gay men through this and started building a community of friends and a chosen family.
Then Jason passed, my good friend who had gotten me the plane ticket out of Alabama. His story was similar story to mine. We were neglected. We were kicked out of our homes and drugs made sense for that kind of pain.
For many of us, its not just drugs and alcohol its experiencing so much pain in our lives when growing up, from society, and it’s so common. I see it in people who are new to getting off drug and alcohol use. Substance use is prevalent in our community, people are dying, good people who have good hearts. I’m not blaming our families for what is happening, but there is definitely a role being played by family that leads to this.
Adelante: Your music and lyrics seem to come from your deep thoughts.
Michael: They do. When people listen to my songs often they tell me they have had similar experiences growing up and it helps shift my perspective. To write these kinds of songs, you have to be very honest and vulnerable and that’s painful. But someone once told me: shared pain lessens pain.
Those are the songs that make me realize I want to be a singer. They make me realize why I love singing. I think in the beginning when I first started going to various producers, the tendency was they wanted something catchy, pop-like, but I love singing ballads.
Adelante: The Boys and Barbies song is about a young Michael.
Michael: Yes, that was actually the first song I wrote to get produced. I had written songs before, but as a singer, this was the first time I sat down to intentionally write a song for people to hear. I’m not sure exactly how it all came to me but I heard a melody and I started putting words on the paper and after when I looked at it all, I thought, wow, this is really deep. Then I showed it to a couple of producers in Los Angeles and it was the sense that this type of song had not been heard before.
Adelante: How old were you when you wrote Boys and Barbies? What age was the young Michael you sing about?
Michael: I wrote this in my mid-20s about a five-year old-me. A woman from the Church held a party where she had wrapped gifts for all the children, and she asked all the kids to randomly get and open one. I opened a gift that had the Selena Barbie Doll. I was like three years old. She told my parents she felt bad to take the gift away from me. My parents tried to take the doll away and I wouldn’t let them. Growing up, I really loved Selena Quintinella. I still have an old picture of me holding that doll and when I released the first version of Boys and Barbies that picture of three-year old me holding the Selena doll became the cover.
The song wasn’t something that I had planned to write from that age or perspective, it just happened. I remember writing it at a time when I was feeling extremely low. Someone I met in New York heard the song and asked to put it in a feature film called “Regarding Us”.
I ended up re-writing Boys and Barbie part 2, with my vocal coach Steve Mackie who is a composer and writer. When I first wrote the song, I originally envisioned it as a piano ballad but the producer wanted to make it more pop so it ended up being an acoustic pop kind of song. Steve Mackie started playing it on the piano, and sang it with his amazing voice, and I was like wow. I realized that was how the song is supposed to be played and sung.
At about this time in Michael’s life, things were going well and he was feeling good about the direction of his career, his music and his sobriety. Then his best friend Muchy passed away. He says he became extremely depressed, heart broken and started questioning everything in his life and what he was doing. He says it was difficult to get out of bed, and this led him to a relapse.
Adelante: The lyrics of Dancing in the Pain are deep. You talk about scrolling through the phone at old messages. Was that about Muchy?
Michael: Yes.
Adelante: Tell us about Muchy.
Michael: He was the best person. He was a genuine person, with lots of light. He was loving and defended the underdog. He was a very loyal and fierce friend. My neighbor that became a very close friend introduced me to Muchy by handing me a Facetime call he was on and instantly we were like best friends. When I finally met him in person, it was like we knew one another forever. It didn’t take long to realize we liked each other more than friends, but he was with someone and so was I, so we never ended up like that. We just stayed good friends. Whenever we’d see each other he would pick me up and we would kiss. No one questioned it and everyone understood the relationship. In my song’s lyrics, Dancing in the Pain, there is a line “You pick me up with every hello.” These lyrics are from my relationship with him. Towards the end of his life, he and I talked and he opened up about some heavy stuff. When we said good-bye we exchanged love for one another. His last text to me was, I miss you already and that was it.” I’m grateful that that was our goodbye.
Michael: I was in so much pain about his loss. My sister had a friend in upstate New York who was a producer, and she asked that I go meet him. I was not in the mood for making music. I had been coaching another artist about their music and somehow I got inspired and wrote Dancing in the Pain. That song was therapeutic. I was not planning on writing anything, but that song just came out.
Adelante: You are very open with your feelings.
Michael: I’m grateful for that. This is credit to my chosen family. We are so open with each other, they see me; they feel me and I don’t feel judged. There is a lot of toxic masculinity in the world and I understand it. I find honesty so attractive in other people. Sometimes I’ll hear a song and perhaps it’s about something I’m not as honest about, but then that song inspires me to be more honest with my feelings. In the Latin community, often we are not as open and usually don’t vocalize our feelings. Talking about being sex trafficked and Muchy are painful conversations but it helps to talk about them.
Adelante: Are you content with where your career is now?
Michael: If you had asked me a couple years ago why I wanted to be a performer, I would have said because I wanted to help people, but also I wanted to be famous and for the validation. But when Muchy passed my whole perspective on so much has shifted and changed; it’s not about me anymore, its not enough for it to be about me.
Adelante: Do you have a lot projects on the horizon?
Michael: There is another movie I’m working on. I’m not one to sit and wait around; I usually jump into other things. But I’m trying to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I used to get anxious with all the stuff coming at me, but now, it feels like a blessing and it’s been great.
Adelante: Which do you enjoy more, singing or acting?
Michael: I sing every day. I sing when I speak. I sing to the point that I annoy everyone. I enjoy and love acting, but singing is what I started doing first. Singing is the quickest way for me to feel something; the quickest way for me to connect to something is through music. Music for me has been more about my feelings; acting is more about the character’s feelings. Acting has taught me to have more empathy because I have to put myself in the character’s place, in their frame of mind.
It’s ironic that the character Franky, which Michael plays in Go Go has some parallels to past experiences in his own real life. To be sure, the part of Franky is a seemingly innocent participant in a sexy and subversive and a thrillingly erotic tale of murder set in a gay men’s strip club, where the fantasies of the patrons and the “American dreams” of the strippers are shockingly twisted into a nightmare. In Go Go there is sex trafficking, drugs, and drama.
Go Go is cast almost entirely of men of color, comprised of Latino and African American actors playing exclusive go go dancers that cater to the elite. This is a story line which in some ways, mirrors true life situations. Many who dance and participate in the gay go go scene are on the ‘down low’ or don’t consider themselves gay and/or do the work only for the money. There is a lot of machismo in the Go Go story line, along with other cultural stereotypes we often hear about with guys who do this type of work but are not gay.
Adelante: Tell me about the filming of Go Go. What did you like most about it?
Michael: I enjoyed working with some really talented actors, people that had been acting for some time. It felt like a community and was a cast of people of color, not a snarky, or mean girl click, it felt like another community and we allowed each other to be vulnerable.
Adelante: Did you develop any special connections with any of the Go Go actors?
Michael: There is a guy in the first season, Lenny Desanto, and he’s been acting a very long time. We had a scene where I had to give him a lap dance, I remember being so nervous, it was not just him and me; its like the full cast and crew were standing there watching everything. We did a take and I remember him having these really warm eyes saying, It’s Ok. Let’s just have fun. For some reason, that made me feel so comfortable. It was those little gems of let’s have fun and not think too hard about it.
Not all the actors are gay, but they sure know how to act the part. There was a straight boy in the first season who I loved so much who was so comfortable walking around in a jock strap. He was the character with whom I had to go dump the cut-up body. In the film he was really mean to me. His name is Christopher Ortiz and I love him. He was so cute. I love a straight guy who is so open and so fun.
Adelante: Some of the things you all did in Go Go were quite funny.
Michael: Yes, it’s dark and funny, much credit to the writers and director. Being the lead part you have to be there from beginning to end. I can’t think of anything that I did not enjoy.
Adelante: Was there anything that was challenging?
Michael: In the first season there was a challenging scene where I had to call my mother. I’d had similar conversations with my own mother and I thought I could just play off that. But, because of my own past trauma my mind blocked my ability to feel those things. It wasn’t until I took myself out of the scene and thought about how it must have felt for the character calling his mom in this situation, that it clicked.
In the second season, I was filming the scene in the bathtub crying about Jude leaving me. Because of where I was at with my therapy and sobriety, I allowed myself to feel it all. What was hard about that was it stuck with me even after that part and I realized I have been through a lot in my own life. Sometimes I don’t allow myself to feel, and that can put me in a low mental state.
Adelante: Not many films are written from the perspective of gay, bi men of color.
Michael: It’s a gay show, but they are touching on a lot of topics which we don’t usually talk about. Like there is a character, Alex, who works as one of the dancers who is actually married and has a child. He works in the go go scene, because he says it’s the one talent he has. It would be easy to be judgmental about this, but there are a lot of Alexes in the world and in our community. He is a human being that is also struggling with his sexuality, with the pain and trauma and cultural trauma, like machismo that he and people had to break out of. Even though very superficial, GO GO mirrors real society for some gay-bi men of color.
Michael: There is nothing wrong with portraying sex in television and film; the straight community has been doing this way before GO GO. I love to feel sexy. That’s who I am and there is nothing wrong with that. There is a lot of eye candy in the show and there are different perspectives on what this all means. There are people who do this for the money and others for the validation. Then you have Franky who is resenting it all because that is not what he wants to do, he wants to be a singer and not necessarily sexualized. Then there are other characters who own that and it’s a beautiful thing and depends on your perspective. In the real world, you see people dancing in different clubs and such, some like it because they feel it and enjoy it and others like seeing the public enjoy them doing it. Still others do it for the paycheck. There are those that pass judgment and they are entitled to their opinions, but its not good or bad.
I’m always pleasantly surprised when straight people come up to me and say they’ve watched GO GO. Straight guys say they like it. That just shows how far we have come as a society.
Adelante: Where do you see yourself short and long term with respect to your career.
Michael: I see my self being more in tune with my feeling and music and doing more songs like Boys and Barbies. I think my mind is more set on the long term, where I want to make a difference. I want to get more involved in the community and help those who are struggling with the things I did. I’m more excited to just figure that out and how to help.
I know the next EP I’m dropping is going to be more Latin. Perhaps release more singles and ballads. This year I’m feeling very happy and when I listen to Latin music, I feel so happy. So I’ll do more Latin pop.
Adelante: What’s your favorite Selena song?
Michael: “No Me Queda Más”. Maybe it’s the melody I love along with her voice. I relate to the pain. Selena’s brother wrote that song for someone he was in love with that he could not be with. The instruments are awesome starting out with the Mariachi band. I love Mariachi.
I remember that my mother would play Alejandro Fernández and I’d sing the songs. My dad remembers when they took me to a restaurant called Tequila Sunrise in Queens, NY when I was a child. My dad loves telling this story and he says at the restaurant there was this mariachi band playing Alejandro’s song Como Quien Pierde una Estrella and I went up to the guy who was singing and tugged on his hand and got the mic and started singing the song. I do like a lot of Mexican music.
I’ll tell you why I love Selena. The lyrics to her songs are sad even though the music is dance and fun. Selena’s biggest inspiration was Donna Summer and if you listen to Donna Summer’s songs, many are also very sad. Like On the Radio starts with a slow piano ballad and then it goes into a heavy dance track. I love that. I think that’s a very Latin thing. A lot of Latin music speaks to a lot of heavy stuff and deep feelings. I believe as Latinos we love to dance in the pain. My song Dancing in the Pain and my Latin music is also very much like this.
Adelante: Are you back in touch with you mother and family?
Michael: Yes. After 10 years of not speaking we’ve gotten closer over the last year. I’m speaking to one of my sisters also. My father has been great. He has shown up for me. My parent’s perspectives on things have changed as they’ve gotten older.
I believe Muchy’s death softened my mom’s heart. She knew how close we were and I think something happened once he passed, maybe something maternal. I know she loves me, I’m her child, my siblings love me, but there is still something engrained in their DNA that my lifestyle is wrong. I’m grateful that I’m not budging from my boundaries.
Adelante: Has your mother heard your track?
Michael: It’s hard for her because she does not want to support my going in this direction. It’s hard for my siblings to get excited about it also. They like one of the dance music videos I did because I ended up dancing with a woman and perhaps they thought I was straight again.
Adelante: What do you say to people dealing with depression, drug use or feeling alone?
Michael: They are not alone. You can be loved for exactly who you are. Unconditionally. That was something I could not find in the bars, that is what I was looking for when I got kicked out of the house. I’m fortunate that I found a group of friends where the relationship is not based on alcohol or drugs, but rather that we are trying to better our lives.
Adelante: Anything final you’d like to say to our readers and the community?
Michael: They are not alone. If you’re breathing, you’re worthy of love. There is a community out there. You don’t have to be alone. There are really great people out there. If you’re struggling and if you’re still breathing, there is hope.
We look forward to seeing great things from this talented writer, singer and actor. It is an inspiration to see the eager and humble aspirations of a young gay Latino man who has come through a difficult path to be on the road to big things. Please download and watch Go Go on Here TV and download Michael Miguel’s EP Gemini Season Part One: Michael on all streaming platforms. You can also follow Michael on his IG at: akamichaelmiguel.
I would like to thank my chosen family. Also, my parents who have come a long way. My producers, Ant and Jay, for helping create these tracks. Pamela Velez and Stevie Mackey for helping me in rearranging and producing Boys and Barbies. My sister, Dyana Rios, and my nephew, TJ Baker, for not only loving me, but helping push my butt back into the studio. Also, my manager, Elayne, for being understanding of my recovery, honoring my sobriety, and believing in me. Of course, I also want to thank my fans.