Troye Sivan on His Bold New Album, Touring with Charli XCX and Casting Nicole Kidman

The Australian pop star had a whirlwind couple of years on the road and on TV. Now, he’s back with a new album — and he’s feeling more introspective than ever

Troye Sivan’s 2023 electro-pop opus, Something to Give Each Other, landed the Australian star three Grammy nominations and launched him into an intense, electrifying couple of years in the spotlight. He wrapped a major headlining tour that took him from Portugal to Sydney, he sold out massive arenas alongside number-one party girl Charli XCX, and he refined his acting chops on HBO’s The Idol. But doing it all took a toll.

“My last album was this hypersexual, super-connected album that I wrote when I was feeling very much like a citizen of the world,” Sivan says. “At some point along the way, a disconnect started to form where I was going home to the hotel by myself, and I actually was feeling deeply lonely a lot of the time.”

That’s how She’s the Best, Sivan’s fourth studio album, out Oct. 9, was born. It takes a more reflective approach as Sivan mixes club-ready bangers with subdued, earnest tracks that drip with desire. “There is this high-octane side to the album that feels really bombastic, and then there are the songs that feel like the interior of my mind,” Sivan explains.

It’s part of Sivan’s musical evolution over two decades, since his first YouTube video uploads in 2007. With this album, it’s clear that Sivan is as thoughtful and candid as ever. “I’m proud of myself for being as honest as I have,” he says.

The video for the album’s first single, “She’s the Best,” stars fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman. Why did you want to cast her?
We worked together on a movie in 2018 called Boy Erased. I got her number, couldn’t believe it. I didn’t utilize it. Then when [director] Gordon von Steiner and I were talking about “She’s the Best,” we were like, “Who is someone that everyone in the world can understand what we’re trying to show?” And we were like, “It’s Nicole.” So I asked her to do it. 

I was on a Zoom with someone and my phone started ringing, and it was an unknown number. I start seeing the voicemail transcript because I don’t answer unknown numbers. I let it go to voicemail, and then I see the transcription starts coming. It’s like, “Hi, darling Troye, it’s Nic,” and I slammed my laptop shut and just ended the meeting, picked up the phone, and she was like, “I would love to do it.” 

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There’s a lot of drag featured in the video, and you appear in drag. What role has that played in your life?
The song is really honoring the feminine spirit in general. I think it’s something that I grew up fighting. My parents are not homophobic and never have been, but some of my earliest memories are fixing the way that I stood. I have a friend who’s straight, but he would hang his wrist, and I remember being seven years old and thinking, “What is he doing? Why is he doing that? He needs to fix that because otherwise people are going to think that he’s gay.”

I knew that I was gay. I’ve always known. So it totally petrified me. Over the years, I’ve chipped away at that shame and, through it, found so much freedom and power. Doing drag for the first time, something was unlocked where I was just like, “Oh, my God, this feels really special.” What a relief to finally let yourself just sit in that and be.

Were there specific people in your life that you were thinking of while you were writing “She’s The Best?”
It’s a collage of so many people in my life, but specific lyrics definitely are attributed to different people. I’m in my happiest place when I am standing next to a woman being like, “Everyone, look at this. Do you see what I see?”

I’m a gay guy. To be able to have made music with Ariana [Grande] … Lily-Rose Depp is a really close friend of mine; I filmed The Idol with her for a year and a half basically. And then touring with Charli [XCX] and growing up sort of alongside her … From a professional standpoint, I’ve always just loved being in the orbit of these women. It’s definitely a love letter to all of those people.

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You posted pictures of Addison Rae on Instagram with the caption “STB.” Are we teasing something with her?
Honestly, no. I just think she’s 100% one of the girls, that she has that thing where you’re just like, “Wow.” She’s effervescent. She’s like sunshine. She’s the sweetest girl in the whole world and truly has a star quality that is just absolutely undeniable. 

We go into this wig shop and she goes into the window, which is on Hollywood Boulevard, and she’s got this big red wig on, and she’s doing all this crazy shit, and I’m just like, “Wow.” You know what I mean? I’m there with my phone taking a million photos of her. Also, genuinely one of the best pop albums of the last 15 years. That album was so clear and inspired and cool.

Jack Antonoff is credited with production and writing. You guys first worked together in 2015 on “Heaven.” Why did you reach out to him again for this?
Something that I love about Jack [is] the way that he works is everything is set up and ready to go. He’s got obviously the most insane gear, and he’s a very, very talented multi-instrumentalist. The process is so alive and vibrant. He’ll walk up to something and play it, and he will play it maybe twice, and then he moves over to the next thing. It’s this very free process, and so that was inspiring. 

If you’re about to leave the party, what songs make you run back to the dance floor?
That happened recently. I was about to leave, and then I heard “Can’t Get You Out My Head,” by Kylie Minogue, and I was like, “This is such a perfect song.” It’s slinky and sexy. I fucking love that song so much. 

Dance music is music that you really, really live life to, and it’s OK to take your time and let things build and have the kind of restraint to create that tension.

In “Troye Meets World,” there’s a line, “Music meet body, body meet music.” You sing a lot about dancing – how has your relationship with going out changed over those years?
It’s almost aspirational sometimes, because the moments where I do feel truly free are when I’m dancing in a place where I feel safe. I think that that, unfortunately, is not always the case. Over time, something that I have sort of had to come to terms with is that I’m a gay guy; I want to go dance with gay guys and queer people. Those are also just statistically, demographic-wise, a lot of the people who listen to my music. As things have gotten sort of more crazy, I had to try and find spaces where I could go and still let loose in the way that I feel like I need to.

I think that’s also why I take partying so seriously is because I think that there’s a spiritual need, a human need to let loose. That’s what the “Party” video explores. In the visual for that, we were talking about partying and again how seriously I take it and how I do think it’s an innate human thing. Obviously people have always partied. In some capacity, people have always needed to let loose. So the conversation became, “Okay, well, what would this party have looked like back then? Where were all the queer people and what were they up to?” Even this throughline between the “She’s the Best” video and the “Party” video…the characters that we meet and see in “She’s the Best,” I feel like we meet and see them in a very different version, in “Party.”

What were you listening to, reading, watching, while creating the world of “She’s The Best?”
I don’t listen to a ton of, at least not at the moment, of straight-down-the-middle pop. My references are really all over the place. It’s everything from The Avalanches to King Krule and Arthur Russell and Madonna and Kylie. Somehow all of those things make sense to me in the same world.

[“She’s The Best”] was written over a fairly long period of time, so I read quite a bit. There was a book that I read, a very short book by Annie Ernaux. She wrote about this idea of going to the doctors to sit in the waiting room because it was one of the only places where she could sit and think guilt-free about this man that she’s in love with. I loved that so much. There’s a lyric in the album that’s exactly that.

It’s been three years since your last album. Why was it important for you to take this time?
The thing is, it doesn’t even feel like I took my time. I don’t understand how people do it. I think they must be writing while they’re touring. I don’t have that in me. Some of the songs are a year old, some of them are a couple of months old. I think I only know through sitting with them that they stand the test of time to me. I need time to curate the world and I want it to be fully realized. I think I would really, really, really kick myself if I ever felt like I had rushed something.

What’s your favorite song on the album?
I love them all for such different reasons. I think because it is so varied, it’s something for every mood a little bit for me. I really love “Love So Big It Hurts.” That’s the one that’s got the line about waiting in the doctor’s suite just to buy more time. The melody of the verses felt like a gift. There was something, humbly, very classic about the way that that sounded, and it was over strings and guitar. I also love “Cowboy.”

Closing track “Lost Time” features a French monologue from your friend, Lily-Rose Depp. Tell me about why she was the right person for that.
I met her and it was instant. She is so funny and so warm, and just obviously one of the “She’s the Best” girls. Watching her exist, it boggles the mind. “Lost Time” is another one of those manifestation songs where I detail this love, swimming in the pool and the guy sees through me like water and I love that about him. He really cuts through all the bullshit and can see me. Then it’s revealed halfway through the song, basically, “Hope to meet you one day,” to whoever I’m singing to. It’s like how I just want to stay at home and be creative with my guy, making up for lost time because it’s taken us so long to meet each other.

Then I wanted something that felt romantic and intimate and close to me. I asked Lily if she would come by, and she wrote that in the booth. It was two takes and it had the perfect energy.

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The last tour you went on was the Sweat Tour, with Charli XCX. How was that?
One of the craziest moments in my life. What an insane time. There’ve been a few things that I’ve been a part of where you really feel like you just catch a wave of some sort. She’s a visionary. I feel like to know Charli is to be inspired by Charli.

For as long as you’ve been making music, you’ve been considered an icon for queer young people. Even YouTuber Joey Graceffa said that you were one of the inspirations for him coming out. How does that sit with you?
It’s a crazy feeling because it’s daunting. I appreciate it so much. I have to say thank you to my friends and my family because they created a really, really, really solid support system for me to feel like I could write songs about boys when I was 18. I think if I was in a situation where maybe that was more precarious, maybe I wouldn’t have felt like I could put myself out there in that way.