Troye Sivan

Troye Sivan Mellet is Grammy Award-nominated pop singer and songwriter born on June 5, 1995 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Raised in Perth, Australia, from the age of 2, Sivan launched his music career online. In 2007, he began uploading covers of popular releases from Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, and more to his YouTube channel. His first original project, the June Haverly EP, was released in 2012. But it wasn’t his music that initially propelled Sivan to stardom. 

Sivan is regarded as one of the most popular social media stars of the early 2010s. In 2011, he shared a video to his channel titled “Introductions,” kicking off an era of comedy and lifestyle uploads that overlapped with a boom in online fandom. His positioning in the space functioned as an extension of his brief parlays into acting, including a role as young James Howlett in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Sivan frequently shared collaborations with other popular YouTubers of the times, from Zoella and Caspar Lee to Marcus Butler and Tyler Oakley. Sivan grew his YouTube channel in tandem with his music career. In between comedic sketches, Q&As, and challenges, he continued covering releases from other artists, like One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Ed Sheeran. He also shared original content with a twist, penning year-end reviews like “The 2013 Song” and perfectly summing up early 2010s internet culture on songs like “We’re My OTP” and “The Fault in Our Stars,” based on the film and novel. 

Hopeful about where his career was heading, Sivan got ahead of any future executive control of his artistic identity early. On Aug. 7, 2013, he posted the video “Coming Out,” telling his audience of more than 500,000 subscribers: “On August 7, 2010, I told my family that I am gay. And on August 7, 2013, I want you guys to know that I’m gay.” One year later, he released his first major-label EP, TRXYE, via Universal Music Australia and EMI Music Australia. His debut album Blue Neighbourhood followed in December 2015 via Capitol Records. The record explored themes of coming-of-age in suburbia as well as falling in and out of love as a young queer man. Sivan cut even deeper on his sophomore release Bloom, which arrived in 2018 featuring a collaboration with Ariana Grande and raw narratives of his sexual encounters. 

Five years passed in between the release of Bloom and its successor Something to Give Each Other (2023). During that time, Sivan expanded his filmography with roles in Boy Erased (2018) and Three Months (2022). In 2020, he made a brief musical return on In a Dream, a 7-track EP inspired by moments of self-reflection and the demise of a years-long relationship. With Something to Give Each Other, he returned with the hunger of a musician vying for a top-spot in pop’s pantheon. The album’s lead single, “Rush,” earned him his first-ever Grammy Award nominations for Best Music Video and Best Pop Dance Recording. —Larisha Paul