Accidental Anthem
Dove Cameron’s cheeky ‘Boyfriend’ lofts the singeractor to Grammy consideration
When Dove Cameron sat down to write “Boyfriend,” the 26-yearold singer-actor thought no one would ever hear it. “It was my first foray into trying to write for myself,” Cameron tells Variety. “I was like, ‘I just want to write a song that I know no one’s gonna hear, just for me as an experiment.’” Then Cameron teased the demo on Tiktok, and it went viral. Released on Feb. 11, “Boyfriend” quickly became a queer anthem, with its bold chorus proclaiming: “I could be a better boyfriend than him/ I could do the shit that he never did.” The track came to dominate mainstream formats as well, reaching No. 2 on Top 40 radio and No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. And with an MTV VMAS new artist win under her belt, Cameron — who won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2018 for her dual role as the eponymous characters in the Disney Channel series “Liv and Maddie” — is now generating Grammy buzz for that same category. • How did the idea for “Boyfriend” come about? I had just come back from [last year’s] New York Fashion Week with the exact story: I basically was joking about this situation like, “Dude, this guy was so not measuring up to what this girl deserved. Jesus, I could be a better boyfriend than this guy!” And it was just the obvious topline. At the time, Evan [Blair, producer and writer] and I were doing this movie-night thing where I would be like, “OK, tonight we’re watching Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘The Joker,’” and then we would put these different villains on this repeat visual in the studio, he would make these sonic tracks, I would bring in my topline and we would marry them. We found great success with me bringing in my book of poems and layering in this more intimate, heartbreaking concept over these huge, villainous, disturbing-sounding, masculine tracks. • What does it mean to you, as a queer woman, to see “Boyfriend” achieve mainstream success? Growing up, always knowing that I was queer, there were instances of queer songs being on the radio, but I don’t remember them being so indistinguishable from a song about a straight couple. I always saw queer relationships being fetishized or objectified or held in this kind of laissez-faire, male-gaze attitude, especially when it came to two queer women. And then to see people embrace it without even discussing the novelty of having a queer song — where there’s no pretense, there’s nothing about the song that makes it any different than if a man was singing about a woman [or vice versa] — I think it’s incredibly special. • After winning best new artist at the VMAS, what would being nominated for a Grammy mean to you? I can’t even believe that’s a sentence that is being directed my way. The idea of being nominated for a Grammy ever in my life is something that makes me feel so — this sounds hyperbolic, but I’m being honest — honored to be alive. Nothing means more to me than feeling like expressing authentically, as the person that I am, could merit a conversation that would end up in a Grammy nomination. That would just be mind-blowing. • You also have a busy acting career, including roles in “Schmigadoon!” and “Vengeance.” How do you balance that with music? I barely balance it, would be my answer. But I’m enjoying it, I wouldn’t trade it. If I can be in a position where I can create things that help people feel more connected to themselves and their truth, whether that’s about their sexuality, rights, connection to the divine, anger, feelings, trauma, I have definitely done my job.