Troye Sivan may be about to star in the most debauched new show on television, but in real life he likes to keep his nose clean. ‘I don’t do drugs, and I’m not a huge drinker either,’ the singer-turned-actor-turned-singer-again tells me over coffee and banana bread on an overcast morning in West Hollywood. The silver platters of cocaine racked up on-screen in HBO’s hotly anticipated The Idol just aren’t his style. In fact, until fairly recently Sivan thought he was too strait-laced even to go raving. ‘I realised kind of late at 25 — I’m 27 now — that I love going out,’ he says. ‘I assumed I wasn’t much of a partier because I don’t do drugs, but I am! I love partying. The right groove will make me go feral. I lose my mind.’
We’re sitting on the terrace at Great White, an Australian cafeÌ where Sivan, who grew up in Perth and has a house in Melbourne, comes for a taste of home. He’s dressed down in a faded black Acne hoodie and beige cargo pants, but something about his tousled blonde hair and electric blue eyes can’t help but mark him out as an off-duty pop star. Right now he’s in the midst of a whirlwind schedule: after his ES Magazine photo shoot, he’s off to New York to shoot the cover for his as-yet-untitled third album, then he’s straight on to Berlin to make a music video and then to Cannes for the premiere of The Idol. ‘I have a very fun life,’ he says, idly using his fork to smear whipped butter over his banana bread. ‘It’s everything I could ever want.’
