Australian singer Troye Sivan says in
an Attitude cover story that he turned to “hyper-sexualized
environments” to meet people like himself at 17.
The 22-year-old Sivan came out gay in a
2013 YouTube video.
As he prepares to release his
eagerly-anticipated follow-up album to Blue Neighbourhood,
Sivan, who
appears in the upcoming LGBT drama Boy
Erased, said that as a teen growing up in Perth he felt
isolated.
“All my friends were hooking-up with
random people at parties, and I just felt so left behind, because I
didn't know gay people, I didn't know where to meet gay people,”
Sivan
said.
“I didn't really want to venture out
by myself and so I just did stuff that a 17-year-old boy shouldn't
really have to do.”
Sivan said that he got a fake ID and
installed Grindr, a dating app for gay and bisexual men, on his
phone.
“[Y]ou sort of are forced a little
bit into these hyper-sexualized environments, and even though that's
awesome when you're 17 … I didn't know what else to do.”
“[B]ecause I was so small, I was so
scared to meet up with people because I was like, 'I'm going to get
killed. I'm going to get murdered by someone.'”
“[It made me feel] kind of a little
bit creeped out, but at the same time I really don't have any
regrets. Maybe I wasn't ever truly scared, just really
uncomfortable,” Sivan added.