As if Chappell Roan hasn’t already given the queer community enough, now she’s (inadvertently) helped us confirm a long-rumored gay celebrity relationship!
Let’s get into it, shall we?
This summer really has seen the rise and rise of a Midwest Princess as queer pop star Chappell Roan has continued to explode in popularity of the past few months.
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And while each passing day brings the “Good Luck Babe” singer’s career to new heights (for example, she just charted seven songs on the Billboard Hot 100—more than any other artist!), it’s not like she was an overnight success.
Real ones know, her debut album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess dropped last September, and her breakout single “Pinky Pony Club” was first released a full four years ago. Roan’s been working at this pop star game for a minute, and her recent wins could not be more deserved.
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For many gays, it’s a point of pride how early on you first discovered her music, but as we learned recently, the real bragging rights belong to none other than Troye Sivan, who’s been hyping up Chappell Roan for nearly a decade already.
That’s right, she really is your favorite artist’s favorite artist!
Back in 2014, during Sivan’s regular YouTubing days, he had only just released his breakthrough EP TRXYE, when he tweeted about a “16 year old girl” whose music he had “on repeat for two months,” asking his followers to give her a listen and send her some love.
The specific video he shared has since been deleted, but in a follow-up post he identified the singer as Kayleigh Rose—a.k.a. Chappell Roan before she became pop star Chappell Roan—adding, “Let’s blow Kayleigh up because I haven’t heard a voice like this since Adele, no exaggeration.”
Then, Sivan’s friend and fellow YouTuber Connor Franta chimed in, writing, “Yesssss give that vocally blessed goddess her well deserved promo.”
Eventually, the three even met up in person, and the photo proof is honestly adorable.
Well, flash forward 10 years later, and Roan finally is the record-breaking icon Sivan and Franta knew she would be. And in a new interview on Brooke Averick’s Obsessed podcast, Franta spills more details about becoming one of the first-ever Chappell Roan stans alongside Sivan—and possibly revealing some even juicier info in the process!
While offering up some music recommendations for Averick, Franta delves into his “lore” with Roan:
“Her first ever YouTube video she uploaded… I found it on YouTube with my boyfriend at the time,” he shares. “We found the song, it had like no plays, but her voice was unbelievable, so we started tweeting about it, like: ‘This girl is incredible.’ It had like 1,000 plays. This was like 10 years ago.”
“You discovered her?,” Averick asks.
“We like legitimately were like she’s the next Adele,” Franta responds. “Her voice was that soulful and unique… from then on, I followed her, and throughout the whole thing, I’ve just been like, ‘One day, she’s gonna be a star. Everyone will see it.'”
And while that’s all well and good… anyone else putting together the pieces here? Franta doesn’t name his “boyfriend at the the time,” but he talks about the two of them discovering Roan together, comparing her to Adele, and singing her praise on the internet.
It all lines up: Troye Sivan and Connor Franta were (most likely) dating back in the day!
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Look, it may not seem like the biggest deal, but gays of a certain age who grew up watching Sivan and Franta’s YouTube videos have long wondered if there was something romantic between these two, but it had never been confirmed or even indirectly addressed by either of them until now.
Why wouldn’t they have talked about it, one might wonder? Well, Sivan famously came out in a YouTube video in the summer of 2013—just a few months after turning 18—Franta didn’t post his coming out video until December 2014. Though we don’t know the timeline of their (potential) relationship, their tweets about Chappell Roan were posted earlier that year, so it’s very possible Franta was still publicly in the closet while they were together.
Again, this is a big deal for fans who came of age following their YouTube channels, ‘shipping “Tronner” who frequently hung out and shared video collaborations with one another. Diving into their fandom on Reddit, some users seem certain the pair was together until 2016, and that Troye’s breakup ballad “The Good Side”—from the 2018 album Bloom—was about their relationship.
As PinkNews points out, one fan reacted on TikTok with a video that perfectly captures how many of their longtime ‘shippers are feeling: “Does anyone have a time machine? I have to go back in time and tell teenage me that Connor Franta just called Troye Sivan his ‘boyfriend at the time,’ so that she knows she’s watching all those Tronner edits for a reason.”
So, everybody say: “Thank you, Chappell Roan!” If it weren’t for her, we may have never learned the truth about Troye Sivan and Connor Franta’s romantic history!
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Louis
When I was a teenager, I dated a guy called Alex. Can I have an article written about me please?