Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan is the latest celebrity to give an interview with Vogue for the magazine’s 73 Questions series. Sivan is known for his candidness and openness with fans (he was a YouTuber, after all), but Sivan’s interview is still enlightening and full of interesting insights into his life and creative process.
Sivan is one of the most prominent young queer musicians working today, and he loves to give back within the LGBT community. (Along with Charli XCX, he just helped organized Go West Fest, a pride celebration in Los Angeles that raised money for LGBT-centric charities and organizations.) But despite his activism and visibility, Sivan isn’t comfortable being called a “gay icon.” Too often, “gay icons” are the cisgender, white, and wealthy folks who take all the glory while folks with other intersecting identities are disenfranchised.
“I just, from experience, have seen that the LGBT community is so unbelievably diverse and looks like so many people,” Sivan told Vogue. “To kind of be picked as, like, one of the faces of the community… it just made me really uncomfortable, and felt weird and scary.”
In a landscape where so many celebrities seem to lack self-awareness, it’s refreshing to see a pop star decenter himself and celebrate diversity instead.
Watch Sivan’s 73 Questions segment above.
