JoJo Siwa – the Dance Moms breakout star who turned into a teenage pop idol – posted a video of herself dancing to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way on TikTok in late January. The 18-year-old followed the video up with a photo on Twitter in which she was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Best. Gay. Cousin. Ever.”

7 richest transgender millionaires (and a billionaire), ranked

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato has always been very open about their private life, including their sexuality. In March, they revealed they are pansexual. Then, in May, Lovato came out as nonbinary and said they use they/them pronouns.

During an interview on the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience in March, Lovato talked about their fluid attraction.

“I also don’t know if I’m going to end up with a guy, so I can’t really see myself maybe getting pregnant,” Lovato said. “I’m so fluid now – and a part of the reason why I am so fluid is because I was super closed off.”

When Rogan followed up asking if pansexual was the right term to use, Lovato said, “Yeah, pansexual.”

Kehlani

“You wanna know what’s new about me? I finally know I’m a lesbian,” she said.

In an interview with The Advocate, Kehlani explained that coming out isn’t easy for every artist.

“I have a lot of privilege,” they told the publication in April. “I think a lot of artists who we talk about and say, ‘Oh, they had to come out or they had to do this,’ a lot of them can’t hide it. A lot of it is very [much] in how they present. It’s tougher for trans artists. It’s tougher for black gay men. It’s tougher for black masculine gay women.”

Colton Underwood

Colton Underwood came out to Robin Roberts on Good Morning America in April after previously denying his sexuality to the public.

“I’ve ran from myself for a long time. I’ve hated myself for a long time,” Underwood said on the show. “And I’m gay. And I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it. And the next step in all of this was sort of letting people know.”

4 K-pop idols paving the way by coming out as LGBTQ+

He explained he’s known since he was a teenager, but prayed he would be straight. He said there were even moments he had suicidal thoughts before coming out.

In 2019, Underwood started dating Cassie Rudolph from his season of The Bachelor, and the pair broke things off in 2020 after Rudolph filed and then dropped a restraining order against the reality star. Underwood told Roberts that he did love Rudolph, but wishes he could have “been courageous enough to fix myself before I broke anybody else”.

In December, a documentary about his journey, Coming Out Colton, was released on Netflix.

Joshua Bassett

Soon after, Bassett released a statement on Twitter, writing, “Love who you love shamelessly. It’s OK to still be figuring out who you are.” He ended his statement with the words, “I choose love.”

Alexandra Shipp

“I didn’t come out until I was 28,” wrote Shipp, now 29. “Though I don’t believe in regrets, this would definitely be No 1 for myself. I denied denied denied. I struggled with not only my sexuality, but my femininity. I was scared it was too late. I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to get work. I was scared no one would ever love me. Scared. Scared. Scared.” But she said that constant worry was “exhausting”.

David Archuleta

Also in June, Archuleta, the American Idol runner-up from season seven in 2008, took to Instagram to talk about being queer and religious for the first time publicly.

“I came out in 2014 as gay to my family,” he wrote in the post. “But then I had similar feelings for both genders, so maybe a spectrum of bisexual. Then I also have learned I don’t have too much sexual desires and urges as most people … which people call asexual.”

Meet Jack Dylan Grazer, the Luca star who just came out on Instagram

Archuleta, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said his sexuality shouldn’t be a problem for religious communities.

“I think we can do better as people of faith and Christians, including Latter-day Saints, to listen more to the wrestle between being LGBTQIA+ and a person of faith,” he wrote.

Carl Nassib

In the video, he said he donated US$100,000 to The Trevor Project, an organisation that focuses on suicide prevention in LGBTQ+ youth, after he struggled with his sexuality for 15 years.

Nassib’s coming out is historic, as he is now the first openly gay man to actively play in the NFL.

Tommy Dorfman

“Thrilled to reintroduce myself as the woman I am today,” Dorfman wrote. “My pronouns are she/her.”

She went on to thank the trans people who paved the way for her.

“I’m especially grateful to every single trans person who walked this path, broke down barriers, and risked their lives to live authentically and radically as themselves before me,” she wrote. “Thank you to all the trans women that showed me who I am, how to live, celebrate myself and take up space in this world.”

Kal Penn

“I discovered my own sexuality relatively late in life compared to many other people,” Penn told People. “There’s no timeline on this stuff. People figure their s*** out at different times in their lives, so I’m glad I did when I did.”