Troye Sivan Saw Chappell Roan’s Success Coming a Decade Ago

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If there’s one thing about gays, it’s that we’re always ahead of the curve. But even by that standard, Troye Sivan was way ahead of all of us when it came to Chappell Roan, according to a new TikTok deep dive.

TikTok user and pop culture news curator Holden Smith posted a video to the platform on Sunday, showing that the “Rush” singer was a Chappell head all the way back in 2014, when the Midwest Princess was still recording music under the name Kayleigh Rose. The video opens with a photo of Sivan, Roan, and YouTuber Connor Franta, who also counts himself among Roan’s early fans.

Smith located Sivan’s first tweet about Roan, posted in November 2014. “i've had 16 year old girl on repeat for 2 months,” Sivan wrote, linking to a now-private video. (According to Smith, the link led to an original song called “Die Young” released as Kayleigh Rose.) In a separate tweet, Sivan enthusiastically wrote, “LETS BLOW KAYLEIGH UP BC I HAVENT HEARD A VOICE LIKE THIS SINCE ADELE, NO EXAGGERATION.”

Thanks to Sivan’s shoutout, Roan’s video did indeed blow up, relatively speaking. From an old Instagram account, the singer posted a screenshot of the YouTube view count and gushed over getting 15,000 views. “Thank you so much to all who have supported my music and I! Also, thank you so much Troye Sivan,” she wrote.

“I just know these two people are so proud of Chappell,” Smith said in his TikTok, referring to Sivan and Franta. “Within the year 2024, she has skyrocketed and finally is getting recognized by the general public for how talented she is, but these two were literally onto her for the last 10 years. They have been hyping her up, trying to give her her flowers, and it’s finally happening.”

It’s true that Roan is basically unavoidable on the internet today, from her instant classic Tiny Desk Concert to her widely acclaimed Coachella performance. (She has even infiltrated the hyperspecific niche that is gay Stardew Valley stans.)

Sivan, too, reached similar levels of virality last summer with his throwback hit, “Rush.” Both have come a long way since the YouTube days, and both celebrate queer sexuality through their artistry in playful, unapologetic ways. Smith ended his video by imploring Sivan and Franta to weigh in on Roan’s newfound popularity, but we’ll go one further and say that we absolutely need to see the Troye x Chappell collab.

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