How Hayley Kiyoko’s Romance with ‘Bachelor’ Alum Becca Tilley Influenced Her Lesbian YA Novel (Exclusive) 

In 2015, pop star Hayley Kiyoko independently released her self-written-and-directed music video for "Girls Like Girls," a compelling short film that follows a teenage girl falling for another girl with a boyfriend. LGBTQ+ stories like this one were rare at the time, and Kiyoko (who only had 9,000 YouTube subscribers) quickly gained a devoted following of queer people around the internet.

Eight years later, Kiyoko has released two studio albums. Fans affectionately call her "Lesbian Jesus," she's in a loving relationship with The Bachelor star Becca Tilley, and in May she released a YA book based on the "Girls Like Girls" characters that topped the New York Times Best Sellers list. 

Her world has drastically changed, and it was "healing" for Kiyoko to revisit a time in her life when finding love felt like an impossible feat.

"A big part of my queer experience was really wanting to be chosen and really wanting someone to be able to show up for me in return and to show that love back," Kiyoko told The Messenger. It was a "big challenge growing up and finding that."

Today, she's in "a really wonderful relationship with Becca and it's been really great to find a love that is equal and healthy." The two have been together for five years.

Writing the novel at this point in her life was a therapy of sorts. "It was just really beautiful to be able to go down that memory lane and heal the parts of me that felt so desperate to be heard and to be chosen," she said.

On Wednesday, Kiyoko sat down with Joy Ride star Sherry Cola for a Q&A, hosted by Asian American Girl Club and Levi's. Tilley, Ally Maki, Colton Haynes, a few TikTok stars, and more attended the event and listened while Kiyoko reflected on the inception of the video, recalling that she almost scrapped the song completely.

"I remember almost not putting the song on the EP because I was terrified of what people would think," Kiyoko said, getting emotional.

She shared that she "pulled every single favor known to man" to get the video made. "We had a $5,000 marketing budget and it was either hire a DJ to remix a song or try to make the music video of my dreams."

Kiyoko chose the video, and it took off on social media despite Kiyoko's team not having any publicity budget. "I had no label, no distribution and it was all just word of mouth of people feeling connected to a video that I did," she said.

It currently has over 152 million views.

"I'm very grateful that my biggest fear ended up being my biggest strength," Kiyoko reflected.