Sivan is a creature of our time: a self-possessed, on-his-own-terms heartthrob, gay and untroubled, with the commercial sheen of a Disney star and the charisma of a boy prince.Īt 22, he has been famous for more than a decade, albeit in far-off corners of the globe and the internet. Hip-swinging pretty boys in eye makeup are nothing new they’ve been singing on television since Elvis on Ed Sullivan. Margaritaville was in the rearview mirror, receding fast. Sivan stalked the stage like a supermodel in still-shaky training, his nipples peeking out as he danced. Sivan vamped his way through “My My My!,” a thumping club anthem of undeniably sexual exhilaration, in a belted-and-buckled blazer that gaped open at the chest and closed around the waist, an outfit Grace Jones might have worn and enjoyed. As a panel of video monitors played behind him, Mr.
Sivan: a long-limbed elf with a wick of bleach-blond hair and the doe eyes of a Snapchat filter. Then, cutting through the margarita mistiness, appeared Mr. Buffett charmed the studio audience, even before he accepted a guitar and led them through “Margaritaville,” which everyone knew, chorus and verse, like a soused catechism. The main entertainment was Jimmy Buffett, bluff and chortling, on hand to promote his feel-good jukebox musical. The crowd at “The Tonight Show” had not exactly been prepped for Troye Sivan.