Global popstar, internet sensation and LGBTQI icon Troye Sivan is on his way back to New Zealand for a major headline show in Auckland in September.
Troye Sivan Photo: supplied
Sivan grew up on Youtube – like many other young people his age, in front of the camera.
“I don’t know what I would have done without Youtube, it was so many things to me at the time, a community and a hobby and kind of saved me from boredom. It was also just a release, a creative release for me and it ended up being the thing that catapulted everything for me.”
When he wasn't posting videos on Youtube he was travelling, performing within the Jewish community in Australia. “I would get home from these trips and just be kind of bored.”
He was also coming to terms with his identity and his sexuality. Being home-schooled, the online community was not only important to him professionally, but personally, he says.
The 24-year-old came out six years ago, and the community wrapped around him.
“I feel so unbelievably lucky with the cards that I was dealt that now I want to take that and run with it and show it as an option for people so that they can see … you can be whoever you are and still get to achieve everything you’ve wanted to, and still have a really healthy relationship with your family, and you end up with a really supportive partner – all of those things that I feel lucky to have in my life. I want to scream from the rooftop about them just so that people can kind of see that it is a possibility. It’s a world where everything can be more than OK while you’re still staying true to who you are.”
Eventually Sivan was signed to major label EMI who he says approached him with respect and understanding.
“From day one, all of the people who were around me have been super, super supportive of whatever it is I wanted to say or whatever it was I wanted to be, anything really, I got really lucky with that as well.”
Much of what he does feels grassroots, he says. Many of his meetings take place at home and he still uses Photoshop and edits images and makes teaser videos.
Being in the media spotlight and having grown up online, he tries to take a mental break from that world every now and then.
“I think I’ve been in the position maybe one too many times where you open your phone and it’s in a place of stress or anxiety or whatever rather than a positive place.”
“It’s easy to forget what’s happening in your phone is not real life,” he says. But the perks far out way any negative. And if it all fails? “I’ll become an interior designer or something like that in Australia.”
“Part of the reason I feel I’ve managed to stay sane is because I know if this all were to go away, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
Sivan attributes much of how he sees the world to growing up in Perth. Living in Los Angeles and meeting famous people feels like a side hustle, he says, the real world is still very much back home in Australia.
