Ricky Garcia

**Ricardo Rene Garcia Jr.** (born January 22, 1999), known professionally as **Ricky Garcia**, is an American singer and actor. He was part of the trio Forever in Your Mind. He played Naldo Montoya on *Best Friends Whenever*.

## Personal life

He was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Texas. He is the youngest of three brothers. He dated Dance Moms star Chloe Lukasiak from 2015 to 2016. He married Alli Bohl in June 2023.

In December 2018, Ricky went to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to report the years of abuse he suffered at the hands of his talent manager, Joby Harte. Ultimately the case was dropped in February 2019 due to limited evidence to support his claims and the DA failing to question Harte. Shortly followed was an anonymous email sent out to hundreds of people within the industry, including Disney, entitled "Urgent Alert Regarding Joby Harte" that warned them of Harte's dangerous history of his many abused victims, though nothing was done. While Ricky confronted Harte after years of abuse, the manager promised them a FIYM tour in promotion of their second album, which Harte's former assistant Alli Bohl explained was "a clear manipulation tactic to pull Ricky back in and make it harder for him to escape Joby."

On September 11, 2019, Ricky filed a lawsuit against Harte for years of sexual abuse, rape, and being groomed and molested by Harte's industry friends. He posted on Instagram, "Today was one of the most difficult days of my life. It was through the support of my family, friends, all my supporters, and most of all God that I summoned the courage to speak out against the executives who sexually abused me as a child. Sadly, I know my experience is just one of many and I hope my actions today will help others who experienced abuse to know that they are not alone and that there are people in this world fighting for them..." He confessed that when he came forward, many people close abandoned him, including co-star Landry Bender, the Angel family, and members of In Real Life. His mother Tammy Garcia reported, "There are pedophile rings all throughout Hollywood. We stumbled into one of those rings. The one thing that can fix this is talking about it, but Hollywood doesn't want to talk about pedophilia." She added a timeline and stated the first time Ricky was abused by Harte and his associates was during a trip to Catalina Island, where the band was supplied with alcohol. Ricky and Emery drank "to the point of being sick," where Liam took care of his cousin while Harte undressed and bathed Ricky. Ricky woke up the next day naked in bed with Harte, with no memory. This pattern continued on a weekly basis by Harte and others for years.

## Discography

### Singles

#### As lead artist

 "Lock It Up"
 "All I Wanna Do"

## References

1. ↑ Neophytou, Nadia (February 18, 2021). "From Acting to Singing, Ricky Garcia Gives It His All". *American Songwriter*.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Baculi, Spencer (January 6, 2020). "Ricky Garcia's Mother Details Alleged Sexual Abuse Suffered While Working at Disney". *Bounding into Comics*.
3. ↑ Trepany, Charles (September 11, 2019). "Former Disney Channel Actor Alleges Manager Sexually Assaulted Him 'Almost Weekly'". *USA Today*.

Template:Ricky Garcia