Troye Sivan has upset some adults on social media after footage of his performance from a recent show in Portugal surfaced online, with social media users declaring that Sivan be “cancelled”.
On Wednesday (29 May), the Aussie singer kicked off his Something To Give Each Other tour and premiered songs from his latest album of the same name at the Coliseu dos Recreios in Lisbon, Portugal.
A video of his performance has surfaced online, where a shirtless Sivan got on his knees and looked to imitate a sexual act with one of his dancers before singing Got Me Started into the microphone held in front of him. Later in the show, he kissed one of the dancers during the final song, Rush.
However, it was the imitation of a sexual act that upset some social media users, with one commenter on X (formerly known as Twitter) reacting facetiously, “Now cancel him like y’all did with Lil Nas X and Adam Lambert”.
Another X user wrote, “We don’t need to be doing all that,” while another labelled the performance “cringe.” Concern was also expressed for younger people in the audience, with others writing, “There are children” and “Doesn’t he know that there are children and minors watching?”
In response to some of the criticism, a Sivan fan wrote, “I feel like it’s pretty simple to just not go see a gay adult artist perform if you don’t want to see gay adult art performed”.
Another X user reminded those getting upset about Sivan making adult art that his 2018 song, Bloom, is about losing one’s virginity. After Dazed described the song as a “gay anthem for bottoms,” Sivan said, “It’s 100 per cent about flowers! That’s all it is. Call it whatever you wanna call it. I wanna play that song at every Pride.”
Earlier this month, Sivan amused Americans by explaining “bush doofs” and “poof doofs”.
“So, a ‘doof’ is a party, like (fist pumps) ‘doof, doof, doof’,” Sivan explained on the Late Show with Seth Meyers in footage that went viral. “And then a bush doof is a doof in the bush.”
Meyers responded that the description was “self-explanatory”, but Sivan wasn’t done yet discussing the LGBTQIA+ iteration of the term.
Detailing the term “poof doof” and hinting at the famous Melbourne nightclub of the same name, the singer continued, “I don’t know if this is a slur in America … It’s fine [pointing to himself, referencing that he’s gay]. A poof doof is a gay party.”
Responding to the video, an Australian TikTok user wrote, “Love that he’s sharing our culture with the world”.
