Hayley Kiyoko is one of those rare child-actor success stories, going from starring in Nickelodeon and Disney Channel shows to becoming a queer pop star, film director, and holder of the title “Lesbian Jesus.”
Ever since she heard Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” and “wished that it was a gay girl singing,” Kiyoko knew she wanted to be on stage singing real queer anthems.
She finally hit it big in 2015 with her single “Girls Like Girls,” where she sang, “Girls like girls like boys do – nothing new,” and has now parlayed that success into first, a novel, then into a movie she’s helming that will be released this summer.
So here’s the tea on who Hayley Kiyoko is, why her fans call her Lesbian Jesus, and what she’s up to these days.
Who is Hayley Kiyoko?
Kiyoko started her career as a child actor with roles in Disney’s Lemonade Mouth and Wizards of Waverly Place, but she quickly turned more of her attention to music.
She was in the garage band Hede and joined the pop group The Stunners. They released a handful of singles together, including “Dancin’ Around The Truth,” but the band split up in 2011 before ever releasing an album.
Luckily, that didn’t stop Kiyoko, and after years of living in the closet, she came out publicly when she released the single “Girls Like Girls” during Pride Month in 2015, which catapulted her to fame.
She also directed the music video that accompanied it, which featured two teenage girls who are crushing on each other and join forces to fight back against a creepy straight man who won’t leave them alone. The video garnered millions of views on YouTube and led to a record deal with Atlantic.
The 34-year-old star turned the song into her debut sapphic romance novel of the same name in 2023, and then adapted the story into a movie she’s directing later this year.
In her private life, Kiyoko got engaged to her longtime girlfriend Becca Tilley after proposing in 2025, seven years after they first started dating.
Why is she called Lesbian Jesus?
After hitting it big with her single “Girls Like Girls,” she was able to release her debut album, Expectations, which featured sapphic love songs and celebrated queer desire. It was at this point that her devoted queer fanbase started calling her Lesbian Jesus.
She got the title because of the work she’s done to highlight lesbian romance, and for bringing unapologetically queer lyrics and themes to mainstream pop music. But it was the way she makes fans feel seen and safe that really cemented the moniker.
“I think that we all deserve to have community and support,” the singer said, per Them, “and so I'm grateful that my fans feel that way when they're listening to my music, or they come to a concert.”
What has Hayley Kiyoko said about the nickname?
While promoting her young adult novel Where There’s Room For Us last year, Kiyoko told the Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club podcast that fans started calling her Lesbian Jesus at Q&A’s and meet-and-greets before her shows, but she was confused about the term until a friend explained it to her.
“I felt like I was out of the loop as a millennial,” she said. “So I was like, ‘Oh, people are calling people 'Lesbian Jesus.' Like, this is a thing that I need to catch on to. I remember going online, and then being with one of my friends, and being like, ‘No. They call you 'Lesbian Jesus.’”
Kiyoko also said that it was “healing” to have people call her this nickname.
“My name is just Hayley. And that's just what people called me,” she said. “I never excelled in sports where I had a cool nickname. And so it feels like it's healing my inner child having a nickname, even if it is 'Lesbian Jesus.'”
Why is everyone talking about Hayley Kiyoko right now?
Kiyoko is making headlines again right now because she just released the first trailer for her directorial debut, Girls Like Girls. The sapphic film is based on her coming-of-age novel of the same name and follows Coley (Maya Da Costa), a new girl in town who falls in love for the first time with her new friend Sonya (Myra Molloy).
Girls Like Girls arrives in theaters on June 19.
