Hayley Kiyoko

LGBTQ pop fans embrace her as an icon: ‘Lesbian Jesus’

‘ My dream was to be like ’NSync,” says Hayley Kiyoko. The 27-yearold singer-songwriter had this epiphany in fourth grade, when she saw her favorite boy band perform live. “My dream was to have screaming girls around and be successful and popular,” she adds. “But I thought, ‘I’m a girl, and I don’t know if that’ll ever happen.’ ” Fifteen years later, Kiyoko mustered the courage to come out via her self-released breakthrough single, “Girls Like Girls.” (“Like boys do,” she adds in the chorus, “nothing new.”) The video, which she directed, centers on two friends who brave a boy’s jealous rage to share a kiss. Fans responded by heralding Kiyoko as their new pop idol, calling her Lesbian Jesus. Born in Los Angeles to figure-skater Sarah Kawahara and comedian Jamie Alcroft, Kiyoko came of age in show business, starring in Nickelodeon and Disney productions as a teen. “I never felt like I had a community growing up,” she says. “We all just want to feel understood and loved. It sounds cheesy, but my listeners create that for me.” Kiyoko raised the bar with her 2018 debut, Expectations — a textured set of synth-pop ballads on the ups and downs of being a woman who loves women. By the middle of her Expectations tour, fans had tossed about 78 bras onstage, all of which she donated to a nonprofit group for homeless women. Her next goal: to hear her songs on mainstream radio. “These were stories that made me feel so alone for my whole life,” Kiyoko says. “Now I’m playing catch-up in my twenties [and] just beginning to talk about these experiences. And eventually begin new experiences . . . I went on my first date a couple of years ago!”

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