Troye Sivan Responds To Backlash Over 'Rush' Music Video

Troye Sivan has responded to critics of the music video to his latest banger, Rush, after many claimed to be disappointed that the clip failed to showcase diverse body types.

ICYMI: The 28-year-old dropped his latest track this week, with the music video featuring a slew of chiselled men as they dance shirtless throughout the song.

While the tune itself undoubtedly slaps (dare we already declare it to become to biggest Australian song of the year?), fans took umbrage over Sivan perpetuating gay stereotypes while failing to feature a diverse representation of the community.

The ‘Rush’ video is fine and all but Troye baby, how about showing more type of bodies? 😅

— J. (@vantienjerry) July 13, 2023

“I adore Troye Sivan, but this Rush video is making me feel some type of way. It seems like a case study on how white gays choose to view queer people as a whole. There’s not a single fat person in the entire video. Just white twinks and chiselled bodies,” one fan said on Twitter.

They added, “It’s not that someone like Troye Sivan has to include diverse bodies in all his videos, it’s the fact that he chose to promote “Rush” as this gay sex liberation anthem yet left out a massive chunk of the population he’s singing about? Why is critiquing that ‘boring discourse’?”

It’s not that someone like Troye Sivan *has to* include diverse bodies in all his videos, it’s the fact that he chose to promote “Rush” as this gay sex liberation anthem yet left out a massive chunk of the population he’s singing about? Why is critiquing that “boring discourse”?

— Tomás Mier (@Tomas_Mier) July 14, 2023

Others defended the star, pointing out that other artists haven’t faced backlash for perpetuating body stereotypes, with one fan saying, “Hello, Tis I, a queer fat. I def noticed the lack of fat bodies in Rush but honestly am finding the ‘discourse’ around it more harmful.”

“There are no fat people in an Ariana [Grande] vid, why are you choosing to dunk on Troye? The video is hot, the song is hot. Bandwagon jumping is not hot.”

Amid the backlash, Sivan spoke to Billboard on Tuesday (July 16), where he addressed the negative comments about the Rush video.

“I definitely hear the critique,” Sivan said in the interview. “To be honest, it just wasn’t a thought we had — we obviously weren’t saying, ‘We want to have one specific type of person in the video.’ We just made the video, and there wasn’t a ton of thought put behind that.”

He also pointed out the hypocrisy of some criticising his video while reinforcing their own negative stereotypes.

“There was this article … and they were talking about [the lack of body diversity], and in the same sentence, this person said ‘Eat something, you stupid twinks,'” he said.

“That really bummed me out to read that — because I’ve had my own insecurities with my body image. I think that everyone’s body is as beautiful as it is, including my own, and it just sucks to see people talking about other people’s bodies.”

Check out the clip for Troye Sivan’s Rush below.