It’s been less than four months since Australian electropop singer Troye Sivan released his debut album Blue Neighbourhood, and already the 20-year-old is rising in the charts. Troye, who first gained notoriety as a YouTuber, FaceTimed for an interview with Out Magazine to discuss his rise to fame, how he handles it, his impact on the LGBTQ community, and his future agenda.
Troye started his entertainment career as a child actor, starring as Spud in the Spud franchise and as Young Wolverine in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film. Out reiterates how Troye’s singing career started when he posted a YouTube video of a self-made song inspired by author John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and was contacted by a record label willing to sign him –– a fairly easy lifeline to stardom, which Troye is himself well aware of.
“This is exactly what I’ve always wanted. And when I’m not in my own head about it, I have the best time.”
It is true, Troye’s rise to stardom is not the most common of ways. However, if not for his passion, he would not have gotten to where he is today. According to Out, “his 4 million YouTube subscribers, 3.6 million Twitter followers, and 3.6 million Instagram fans are really just the starting point”.
“I’ve been looking at people’s faces a lot more during a show, and it’s been getting me insane amounts of joy….I see kids who are proud of themselves and proud of me, and it just really makes me happy.”
Hard work pays off, but as Troye shares with Out, nothing could prepare him for the rigorous work and concert schedules. His recurring sinusitis due to a deviated septum will require him to miss two shows in Canada. Touring around the world isn’t an easy thing to do, as Troye himself has figured out, but there’s no doubt that at the end of a show, it’s all worth it.
Almost three and a half years after posting an emotional Coming Out video on his YouTube channel addressing to his viewers that he is gay, Troye’s fans and followers continue to be impacted and inspired by the young LGBTQ advocate. For one, at a recent show in Washington, D.C., he helped a 14-year-old girl come out as bisexual to her mom in the crowd. Out Magazine reveals how one song off Blue Neighbourhood, “Heaven”, was therapeutic for Troye to write because it addressed some of the issues “that you have to have with yourself as an LGBTQ person”.
“That moment where you take on that responsibility and feel that empowerment, seeing that in a physical form looking back at me, singing those lyrics back at me was….a life-changing moment.”
As for what the future holds, all things uncertain are possible for Troye. From his thank-you note to his “beautiful boyfriend” in Blue Neighbourhood, to pushing his latest single “Youth” further up the charts, Troye and his fans are already off on a journey together. The definite power that YouTube stars have in their own dedicated futures can directly impact those that follow them along that way.
And sincerely, it’s one of the reasons why “Youth” resonates so well Troye’s listeners.
“It’s about not knowing where you are going and finding someone, and not knowing what the two of you are or aren’t. How because you’re young, there are not necessarily a lot of consequences, and it’s OK.”
You can read Troye’s article with Out Magazine here.
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