Facetime with Troye Sivan

Troye Sivan’s road to pop stardom faced two hurdles: distance (he hails from remote Perth, Australia) and his sexuality (he came out at age 18). But with a role alongside Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe in “Boy Erased” following viral videos on Youtube, a top-10 debut (2015’s “Blue Neighborhood”) and duets with Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, Sivan has truly arrived.

Your album “Bloom,” which drops Aug. 31, is relatively compact. Why only 10 songs?

It feels like a bold statement — to be able to sum up my life and where I’m at, and who I am as a musician and as a writer, in 10 songs. That felt like a challenge.

Do you struggle with internalized homophobia?

Totally. I used to struggle with it a lot more than I do now, and I can almost laugh at it when it rears its ugly head. I was thinking about a moment on the “Bloom” shoot where I was actualizing this vision I had for this extremely flamboyant music video and I caught myself in the mirror and my heart sank. I felt 14 again. Like, “Is this OK?” And of course it’s OK. It’s what I wanted to do. I felt cool. I felt sexy. Yet there was that internalized homophobia making me doubt myself and question myself. It’s hard to shake that kind of thing.

At the same time, you’re so sex-positive.

With my first album I felt the need to educate people a little more. I wanted to hold the hand of someone who isn’t queer and gently ease them into a queer love story that was super-pg. This time around, I wanted to write music for people like me — honest music.

You started out so young in the business. Have you ever experienced sexual harassment or abuse?

I actually have when I was really young. And thankfully it didn’t go as far as it could have. I’m lucky I avoided that. But someone said to me, “What if that person is doing that to somebody else?” And that has really stuck with me.