Troye Sivan is back, and he’s surrounded himself with some seriously iconic women for his new era.
The openly gay Australian pop star has released “She’s the Best”, the first single and title track from his forthcoming album, accompanied by a star-studded music video featuring Nicole Kidman, RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 winner Sasha Colby and a cast of drag queens and trans women.
Close friend and collaborator Charli xcx also makes a subtle appearance on the track, contributing vocals towards its end.
Rather than being a traditional romantic love song, Sivan describes “She’s the Best” as a celebration of the women and feminine people who have remained constants throughout his life.
“The one thing that has been constant in my whole life is the women in my life, and the feminine people in my life,” he told Rolling Stone.
Nicole Kidman enters Troye’s queer world
Directed by Gordon von Steiner, the video follows Kidman into a nightclub populated by drag performers, including trans icon Sasha Colby, while Sivan moves through scenes of everyday New York life.
Eventually, the pair come together in the club, where Sivan also appears in drag alongside the other performers.
Sivan first met fellow Australian Kidman while working on the 2018 queer conversion-therapy drama Boy Erased.
“She’s always just been such a picture of the divine feminine to me,” he said.
Sivan sent Kidman the track and references for the video before asking her to appear — and apparently still wasn’t prepared when she personally called him about it.
After ignoring an unknown number during a Zoom meeting, he saw the voicemail transcription begin: “Hi darling Troye, it’s Nic.”
“I slammed my laptop shut and just ended the meeting,” he recalled.
A new chapter for Troye
Sivan says the forthcoming album captures both the extraordinary highs of recent years and the loneliness and longing underneath them.
“She’s the Best is a painting that captures my life in all of its moods and colours,” he said. “It’s chaotic, layered, organic, troubled and alive.”
For an artist whose music has so often centred queer male desire, the new single shifts the focus towards the women, trans people, drag performers and feminine energy that have helped shape his world.
And with Kidman, Colby and Charli xcx helping launch the era, he’s certainly assembled one hell of a queer family.
She’s the Best, Sivan’s first album since 2023’s Something to Give Each Other, is due for release on 9 October.
