The Stunning Transformation Of Troye Sivan

On his 2015 single "Youth," Troye Sivan sings, "My youth, my youth is yours, a truth so loud you can't ignore." It's the perfect summary of the star's creative ethos. After all, his career began at a very young age, and his output has been defined by a willingness to share all parts of himself with his audience, until it's impossible to look away. From his early days on YouTube to his starring role on a buzzy HBO show, from his vulnerable "Coming Out" video to "Rush," a song that had the clubs of West Hollywood bumping all summer 2023 long, Sivan's youth is ours.

There's another major theme of his career, though, which helps explain why his audience has only grown over the years: community-building. "I feel like often we all think that we're the only one in the world who has ever felt a certain way, or had ever had that experience, but I think that it's not true," he told PopBuzz in 2015. Through his videos, his music, his fashion, and his acting, Sivan has endeavored to create spaces where communities can come together with his creativity soundtracking their lives. "Heartbreak, freedom. Community, sisterhood, friendship. All that," he wrote on Instagram in 2023.

It's been a long journey from child star to superstar, and Sivan's path to the top of the entertainment industry has seen him through a number of different incarnations over the years. Read on for a look back at the stunning transformation of Troye Sivan.

Troye Sivan Mellet was born in South Africa on June 5, 1995, but he moved to Australia when he was very young. "I think I was just over two years old," he told The Global Town Hall. "I do miss it, a lot. We still have a lot of family there, including my 86 year old Nana, so sometimes it gets a bit hard being so far away." However, Sivan was ultimately glad his family made the journey. "I'm a firm believer (and perhaps a little biased) that Perth is one of the most beautiful cities in the world."

Though Sivan no longer identifies as religious, he is Jewish, and his Jewish upbringing formed some of his most cherished childhood memories. "My great-grandmother spoke Yiddish in the house when I was young," he told W Magazine in 2023. Sivan still looks forward to having Shabbat dinner every Friday night.

Sivan's childhood was defined by something else, too: music. His mother, Laurelle Mellet, appeared on BBC Radio 1 in 2015, telling host Nick Grimshaw that she remembers her son hiding behind the curtains at home and singing for the family. "We always called him the loud child," she said. "Because he just literally was singing, or making a noise." His family recognized his budding talent and soon, the young Sivan was taking vocal lessons, preparing for a rise to stardom that would shortly follow.

As a child in Australia, Troye Sivan displayed a very early musical talent, and it wasn't long before he started to get noticed. Sivan performed on a Perth telethon two years in a row, including singing with Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian. In 2006, he sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." When he returned the following year to sing Billy Gilman's "There's a Hero," his introduction drew cheers. "A favorite in the crowd," the announcer noted.

Around the same time, Sivan discovered YouTube. He was an early adopter; the site launched publicly in late 2005, and by 2007, Sivan was sharing videos of himself singing on the platform. He told Fuse that he was inspired to start uploading videos after seeing a singer named Lisa Lavie replying to fans in her comments section. After he posted a cover at her urging, she replied and told him she liked it. Sivan was hooked. "One day I was sick. I was home from school and I just got really bored, so I thought, I put up one video; I may as well put up another. And that video now has like, over a million views."

Thanks to his videos on YouTube, Troye Sivan caught the eye of a talent manager called Rod Paul. Paul worked with the manager of a child singer named Declan Galbraith, and when Sivan covered one of Galbraith's songs, Paul took notice. However, he wasn't able to help Sivan out in the music realm. "Rod contacted my parents and myself, asking if I had thought of trying out acting," Sivan recalled to The Global Town Hall. "I told him that I was keen, and he sent over my first audition within a couple of weeks."

Sivan had been asked to try out for the part of Young Wolverine, the younger version of Hugh Jackman's character, in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." He explained, "Mum and I filmed it at home, and emailed it off ... and I got the part! Essentially, I owe it all to the internet, and to my manager stumbling upon my video that day."

The budding talent played Young Wolverine in the movie's opening sequence, depicting the mutant as he grows bone claws for the first time and kills his father in a fit of rage. Speaking with Australian news show "A Current Affair," the baby-faced 13-year-old Sivan expressed his disbelief at his good fortune. "That doesn't really make sense to me," he said. "I can't understand ... I'm just any other normal kid. Why me over all those other thousands of kids? ... I guess I just got lucky."

In 2013, at 18 years old, Troye Sivan posted a video to his YouTube channel called "Coming Out." In the emotional clip, Sivan told his followers that exactly three years earlier, he'd come out as gay to his family. "It feels kind of weird to have to announce it like this on the Internet," he said, "but I feel like a lot of you guys are like, real genuine friends of mine, and I share everything with the Internet." Sivan clarified that he was sharing this with his followers simply because he shares everything online, and he didn't want to feel like he had to hide his sexuality. "This is not something that I'm ashamed of, and it's not something that anyone should have to be ashamed of," he emphasized.

Throughout the video, Sivan expressed his nervousness that being openly gay would limit his opportunities and change the way fans responded to his content. Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case. He reflected on that pivotal video in an interview with People years later, ruminating that he'd been on the verge of signing a record deal and wanted to make sure he was the one in control of his own story. "I wanted to start going out and going to gay clubs and meeting boys, and I wanted to write songs about love that were true and genuine," he said. His "Coming Out" video allowed him to start doing exactly that.

Troye Sivan's major musical moment finally arrived in 2014. He released "Happy Little Pill," the lead single from what would become his debut EP, "TRXYE." On Tumblr, he addressed the fans who had come to love his willingness to share everything with his webcam. "I have the best and craziest and most committed audience in the world, and I love you all endlessly," he wrote. The EP topped iTunes in a number of countries, leading to elation from his record label. "I was like, 'Oh s***, this is as big as I thought it was,'" he told PopBuzz in 2015.

After "Happy Little Pill," Sivan's music career was off and running. "TRXYE" was followed in 2015 by the "Wild" EP, which previewed his debut album, "Blue Neighbourhood." The songs, including hit single "Youth," depicted a specifically queer suburban malaise, full of crushes on boys, early sexual experiences, and a smooth, more mature version of the voice he showed off on YouTube in those early years. When the album was released, Sivan was 20 years old.

This era signaled another new transformation for the social media star, as he quickly became a fashion icon; he walked for Saint Laurent. "I was definitely scared of fashion growing up just because I didn't want people to think I was gay," he told Harper's Bazaar. "But now that I'm out and everything ... I feel more and more confident and comfortable to wear the clothes that I want to wear."

On "Talk Me Down," a track from "Blue Neighbourhood," Troye Sivan sang, "I wanna sleep next to you, but that's all I wanna do right now." By the time he released his sophomore album "Bloom" in 2018, the 22-year-old Sivan was no longer a heartsick teenager. In "Bloom's" visuals, lyrics, and performances, Sivan stepped into a more confident, overtly sexual image ... and new, dyed-blond hair! In particular, Sivan wanted to make his music more obviously queer. "Part of my response is anger and part of it is action and trying to do the most that I possibly can to help people by using the position that I'm in to its maximum," he told Clash. "A real valid way to try and process [facing oppression] is to go out and enjoy yourself and be louder and celebrate who you are."

It seems to have worked, and Sivan's profile in the industry grew. "Bloom" included "Dance To This," a collaboration with Ariana Grande. Sivan also joined none other than Taylor Swift onstage at the Reputation World Tour, strutting their stuff to "My! My! My!" Years later, looking back in an interview on Radio Andy, Sivan recalled feeling disoriented. "I was like, why is Taylor Swift singing at me right now?" he remembered. Once they began to walk, however, the fear melted away. "In my head I was like a Victoria's Secret model," he said. Troye Sivan, full-fledged pop star, had arrived.

In 2018, Troye Sivan returned to acting in Australian director Joel Edgerton's film "Boy Erased," a movie about a gay teenager who is sent to conversion therapy. Sivan played Gary, another boy at the facility. Gary is American, and Sivan told W Magazine that he developed an unusual strategy to practice his accent: trying it out in Ubers. "I would try and get through the entire ride in an American accent, and then at the end I would always be like, 'Haha, did you know that I'm Australian?'" he joked. For the most part, his drivers couldn't tell, which told Sivan he was doing well.

In addition to acting, Sivan wrote and performed a song for the soundtrack called "Revelation." He told Billboard that the emotional song was inspired by a scene in "Boy Erased" where the main character has an interaction with a boy that actually goes well. "God doesn't strike him down and the world doesn't fall apart," Sivan noted. The tune was nominated for a Golden Globe, which surprised the pop star. "Promise I'll say something eloquent and sweet about it soon but for now what the f***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" he wrote on Twitter.

Though he didn't win, Sivan did ultimately say something more eloquent than his tweet. Speaking with HollywoodLife, Sivan reflected, "This movie means so much to me and the song means so much to me and the message of both are super, super close to my heart."

In the early part of his career, fans speculated that Troye Sivan was in a relationship with fellow YouTuber Connor Franta, but that relationship was never confirmed. He did, however, begin dating model Jacob Bixenman shortly before Valentine's Day in 2016. They frequently posted selfies together on Instagram, and in 2019, marking three years together, Sivan wrote, "luckiest boy alive. love you lots."

Unfortunately, the relationship was not meant to last. While most outlets didn't report on the breakup until the summer of 2020, Sivan told British GQ that they split in 2019. Sivan took it hard. "It was a rough ride with a lot of ups and downs for sure," he confessed to Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe. "Untangling yourself from someone, it felt like this big ball of just knotted wool or something like that."

As he often does, Sivan poured his heartache into music. In 2020, he released an EP called "In A Dream," inspired by the breakup and the fact that he found himself waking in tears. "I think, as a songwriter, my goal is to always be guided by honesty," he reflected to British GQ. However, unlike the "Wild" EP — which was later incorporated into "Blue Neighbourhood" — the songs on "In A Dream" are their own standalone work. Ultimately, Sivan began to heal. "I started to get crushes," he said, "and realized that I wasn't emotionally dead."

2020 was a year of global upheaval, and Troye Sivan felt the effects of the pandemic lockdown, too. When the world shut down, he left Los Angeles and returned to his native Australia. At first, he liked being back near Melbourne, back with his parents. "It was actually really nice for those first couple of weeks, and if anything, it's renewed a little bit of closeness in my family relationships in general," he told W Magazine. Eventually, though, Sivan needed space.

By April 2021, Sivan showed off his new Australian home to Architectural Digest. "Eventually, I was just like, 'Wait, what am I doing, I am so unbelievably happy here,'" he explained. "And I just feel so at home that I wanted to put down roots, and I found this house and I was just like, done." On the house tour, he explained that he wanted "a soup of light," or soft lighting from multiple lamps and sources. He prefers this to overhead lighting because, as he put it, "no one looks good in that."

Sivan enjoyed the experience of decorating his new house so much that, in 2023, he released a line of home decor and fragrances. He told W Magazine that every product is Australian-made, and he might be in this line of work even without his prior fame. "Starting an Australian lifestyle brand speaks to me as a person before it speaks to me as a performer," he said.

When Troye Sivan made his Met Gala debut in 2018, he rocked the red carpet in an androgynous, red Valentino look, complete with a shock of light blond hair. "I felt amazing this night," he told Vanity Fair. "Planning a Met Gala look is one of the funnest things I've ever done." The look was a hit that landed him on "best dressed" lists, including the one put together by British GQ. 

Three years later, a 26-year-old Sivan returned to fashion's biggest night in a form-hugging, neckline-plunging black dress. He accessorized with high-heeled boots and a leather strap around his bicep, topping everything off with a Cartier necklace. Sivan previewed his look on Instagram, sharing a short video clip of himself stomping a patio as though it were a runway. The dress, according to PopSugar, was designed by Joseph Altuzarra for a collection called "Altu." This time, he landed on Esquire's "best dressed" list.

Sivan's 2021 Met Gala outfit caused waves online when he posted a photo of himself to Instagram standing at a urinal in the dress. In the caption, he revealed that a couple of famous friends made the photo happen. "[Rihanna] told [Tom Daley] to take this pic of me weeing," Sivan wrote. How's that for some name-dropping? Over on Twitter, where he cross-posted the snap, one supportive fan replied, "It's because Rihanna understands art when she sees it." Can't argue with that.

He made his career on YouTube, but aside from music videos, audio streams, and live performances, Troye Sivan hasn't posted an actual vlog to the platform since 2021. These days, you're far more likely to see him on your TikTok's For You Page. Sivan has amassed an impressive 3.1M followers and over 75M likes in the few years he's been using the app. He posts a variety of short-form video content, including jokey videos from bed, confessional-style videos without a shirt on, and content where he shoots his shot with other social media personalities like "Hype House" cast member Vinnie Hacker. It's also a great place for Sivan to post behind-the-scenes content from his many media appearances, even giving fans an exclusive glimpse at his outfits.

"People say musicians have to be content creators now and I think that sucks for a lot of people. For me, that's where I'm really comfortable," he told Time. His ease with social media stretches back to his YouTube and Tumblr days, and he views TikTok as a natural extension of the familiarity he's always had with his fans. "It's really just whatever you want," he reflected. "It's a really fun way for me to express myself."

Troye Sivan played Xander on "The Idol," an HBO show co-created by The Weeknd about a pop star named Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp). Sivan's character was Jocelyn's friend and creative director, and it seems that he didn't have to stretch his acting muscles. "On the press tour ... Lily's just like, looking unbelievable at all times, of course, and so I'm like the gay best friend that's like, taking a million pictures of her all the time," he told Billboard. "I think it's like a very natural role for me to slip into." Working on the show, he said, was "one of the greatest experiences of my life."

Unfortunately for Sivan's sake, the show was not particularly successful. Variety reported in August 2023 that it had been canceled. Viewers seemed particularly uncomfortable with the show's graphic sexual content, but Sivan told British GQ that he tried not to pay too much attention to the backlash. "I'm okay with whatever people want to say about it," he insisted. "It's a TV show. People can hate it, people can love it. I really don't mind."

As for whether "The Idol" signaled a shift back into acting, Sivan isn't so sure. He told W Magazine that he hasn't decided how much he wants to commit to that side of his career. "Acting is something I am still so intimidated by," he reflected. Still, he's willing to give it another shot, if the right project comes along.

In the summer of 2023, five years after "Bloom," Troye Sivan finally launched a proper third album era when lead single "Rush" was released in July. This time around, Sivan underwent yet another transformation: now, he dances! In the music videos for "Rush" and second single "Got Me Started," Sivan excels with some seriously impressive, athletic choreography. He told Vanity Fair that he was nervous to give it a shot, explaining, "It's something that I think I've probably always wanted to do and was really terrified of because I didn't want to be bad at it." Instead of worrying about being bad, Sivan allowed himself to mess up. "I never claimed to be Beyoncé or anything like that, and that really freed me up to just explore and have fun," he said.

"Rush" and "Got Me Started" were big enough hits that fans on TikTok attempted to recreate the visuals' instantly-iconic choreography. To help them out, Sivan posted tutorials on the platform for his followers to follow. "Alright, we're not f***ing around," he said, good-natured, kicking off one such TikTok. As Sivan is a child of the internet, the tutorial's caption fittingly referenced Renata Bliss, a freestyle dance teacher who became a popular meme on Vine.

While Sivan's dancing is impressively relatable, he recognizes that he still has more technical skills to learn. He told i-D, "I'm grateful that my body works, that I'm healthy, that I can move and dance and express myself."

In October 2023, alongside the release of his third album "Something To Give Each Other," Troye Sivan dropped "One Of Your Girls." The song is about hooking up with straight men. "Give me a call if you ever get lonely, I'll be like one of your girls or your homes," Sivan sings. In an appearance on "The Zach Sang Show," Sivan pointed out that while the song may seem like he's idolizing guys who wouldn't be into him, he was drawing from real-life experiences with men who identified as straight. "When I followed through with it a few times, there was this sort of, like, empty feeling afterwards with these particular guys," Sivan reflected, "because there was sort of a limit to what it could be."

In the music video, Sivan appears in drag. He told People that his female alter ego served two purposes. "It's like, slay, there's this performance from a pop-star-girl version of me," he said. It's true; Sivan busts out some impressive, Britney Spears-esque arm choreography. In closeups, however, Sivan's drag persona shows much more emotional nuance than the lyrics might suggest. "Towards the end of the video, I think you really can see the vulnerability and the cracks that this isn't going to work," he said. Because of that, Sivan enjoyed his new look. "I've never done drag before," he said, "[but I've] always wanted to, and it was a really beautiful, fun experience."