Troye Sivan

Troye Sivan Mellet ( TROY sih-VAHN; born 5 June 1995) is an Australian singer-songwriter and actor. After gaining popularity as a singer on YouTube and in Australian talent competitions, Sivan signed with EMI Australia in 2013. He earned early recognition for his extended plays (EPs) TRXYE (2014) and Wild (2015); the former peaked at number 5 on the US Billboard 200, while his debut single, "Happy Little Pill", reached the Top 10 on Australian music charts.

In 2015, Sivan released his first full-length album, Blue Neighbourhood, featuring the multi-platinum single "Youth", which became his first Top 40 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100. His second studio album, Bloom (2018), charted near the top in Australia and the US, while its lead single, "My My My!", became Sivan's second number-one single on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. His third studio album, Something to Give Each Other (2023), topped the ARIA Albums chart. It produced the singles "Rush" and "Got Me Started", which earned him three Grammy Award nominations.

As an actor, Sivan portrayed the younger Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and starred as the title character in the Spud film trilogy (2010–2014). In 2017, he became the youngest recipient of the GLAAD Stephen F. Kolzak Award. In 2018, he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song for "Revelation", from the film Boy Erased, in which he also had a supporting acting role. He has since starred in the film Three Months (2022) and the HBO series The Idol (2023). In 2020, Rolling Stone Australia named him one of the country's greatest artists of all time.

Early life and education

Sivan was born on 5 June 1995 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the son of Laurelle Mellet, a homemaker and former South African fashion model, and Shaun Mellet, an entrepreneur and real estate agent. At age two, Sivan moved to Perth, Western Australia, with his parents and three siblings due to rising crime in South Africa. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, though he does not consider himself to be religious. His mother converted to Judaism when marrying his father, who is of Lithuanian-Jewish descent including from a grandmother who escaped from Lithuania to Johannesburg as a Holocaust survivor. He attended Carmel School, a private Modern Orthodox school, until 2009, when he started distance education.

Career

Music

Sivan's musical career started when he sang at the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Channel Seven Perth Telethon. His 2006 performance included a duet with Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian. Sivan made it to the finals of StarSearch 2007. His debut EP Dare to Dream was released in June 2007. In February 2010, Sivan opened "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube edition)", the collaborative music charity video produced by Lisa Lavie to help raise money for the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

On 5 June 2013, Sivan was signed to EMI Australia, a Universal Music Australia label, but kept it a secret until a year later. On 15 August 2014 he released a five-song EP entitled TRXYE, led by its first single "Happy Little Pill", which was released on 25 July 2014. TRXYE debuted at No. 1 on iTunes in over 55 countries. The EP debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 the following week, scoring Sivan his first Top 10 album. "Happy Little Pill" peaked at number 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association for shipments exceeding 35,000 copies.

Sivan released his second major-label EP, Wild, on 4 September 2015. The EP was supported by a music video trilogy entitled Blue Neighbourhood, comprising the three songs "Wild", "Fools" and "Talk Me Down" and released from September 2015 to December 2015. Next, he recorded a full-length album titled Blue Neighbourhood, which was released on 4 December 2015. The single "Youth" reached number 23 in the Billboard Hot 100. Sivan supported Blue Neighbourhood and Wild with his first tour, 2015's Troye Sivan Live. He followed this with 2016's Blue Neighbourhood Tour and Suburbia Tour. On 26 May 2017, Troye collaborated with Martin Garrix to produce the song "There for You".

On 10 January 2018, Sivan released the single "My My My!", along with an accompanying music video. He confirmed that his second album was inspired by his then-boyfriend, American model Jacob Bixenman. The song was described as a departure from his earlier work, with Pitchfork calling his vocals "assured" and NPR Music describing it as "an infectious celebration of sexual desire". NPR also noted the significance of the song and music video displaying confidence in Sivan's sexuality, writing "it's not every day you see a young, skinny, queer kid get to be completely himself in a music video, and Sivan makes us want to dance along with him." Sivan's first live performance of the song was on 20 January as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in an episode hosted by Jessica Chastain. Sivan later confirmed that his new album would feature a collaboration with long-time friend Ariana Grande, titled "Dance to This".

On 16 March, his song "Strawberries & Cigarettes" from the Love, Simon soundtrack was released. It received a nomination for the 2018 Satellite Awards for Best Original Song. "Bloom" was released as the third single on 2 May 2018, following "The Good Side". That month, he announced that his second studio album was titled Bloom, while accompanying Taylor Swift as a guest performer at a concert in Pasadena during her Reputation Stadium Tour. The album was released on 31 August 2018. The album's final pre-release track, "Animal", was launched on 9 August 2018. That same year, Sivan received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song for "Revelation", which he recorded and co-wrote for the film Boy Erased. He was also shortlisted for an Academy Award for the song. In October 2018, Sivan collaborated with British singer-songwriter Charli XCX on the single "1999"; the two also performed the single together live on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. A sequel collaboration, titled "2099", was debuted on 6 June 2019 at the two artists' LA Pride event "Go West Fest" and released as a promotional single from Charli XCX's album Charli on 10 September 2019. In January 2019, Sivan released the single "I'm So Tired..." with American singer-songwriter Lauv.

On 1 April 2020, Sivan released "Take Yourself Home", his first single from his fifth EP In a Dream. Sivan worked with freelance artists in need of work during the COVID-19 pandemic to create the visual art for his single. The artists, who Sivan met on Instagram, also designed t-shirts for the single, and all net proceeds were donated to the WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and Spotify's COVID-19 Music Relief Project. On 15 July, Sivan released the single "Easy" and announced the release of the concept EP In a Dream. The EP was released on 21 August 2020. In June 2021, he performed songs from the EP for Grubhub's virtual concert series Sound Bites, in support of the NGLCC's efforts in assisting LGBT-owned restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 16 April 2021, his collaboration "You" with Regard and Tate McRae was released. The song topped Billboard's Dance/Electronic Songs chart for eight weeks. Sivan's single "Angel Baby" was released on 10 September. After becoming viral in Southeast Asia, it charted highly in several countries. In February 2022, two original songs Sivan had written for the film Three Months were released. In December 2022, he released a collaboration with PNAU titled "You Know What I Need".

Sivan announced his third studio album, Something to Give Each Other, on 13 July 2023, alongside the release of its lead single, "Rush". On 20 September, the second single, "Got Me Started", was released with an accompanying music video. The album was released on 13 October, along with the third single, "One of Your Girls". On 10 November 2023, Sivan received two Grammy nominations for "Rush": Best Music Video and Best Pop Dance Recording. The album's fourth single, "Honey", was released on 16 May 2024 with remixes by Mura Masa.

On 12 September 2024, Troye was featured on Charli XCX's remix album Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat, the remix album of Brat, on the song "Talk Talk". A voice note from Dua Lipa is featured in the beginning and end of the song. They embarked on the co-headlining Sweat tour in North America in support of Brat and Something to Give Each Other.