HAYLEY KIYOKO ALCROFT was born on this date. She is an American actress and singer who is known by the name Hayley Kiyoko. Kiyoko performed in a variety of films, including Lemonade Mouth, Jem and the Holograms, Insidious: Chapter 3, and XOXO. She also had recurring roles in the TV series Wizards of Waverly Place and The Fosters and lead roles in CSI: Cyber (2015–2016) and Five Points (2018–2019).
Kiyoko issued three solo extended plays: A Belle to Remember (2013), This Side of Paradise (2015), which includes the single “Girls Like Girls”, and Citrine (2016). Following the singles “Sleepover”, “Feelings”, and “Curious”, she released her debut studio album Expectations (2018) which reached the top 20 of the charts in the United States, Canada, and Australia. She has since released a fourth extended play I’m Too Sensitive for This Shit (2020) and her second studio album Panorama (2022).
She began acting at a young age, appearing in national commercials for brands such as GM Onstar, Slim Jim, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Insisting on drum lessons at age six, she was writing drum charts for new releases and selling them in a local music store by age 11. At age 8, Kiyoko wrote a song called “Notice,” which her father still urges her to release.
In 2023, Kiyoko released her first novel, Girls Like Girls, which was published by Wednesday Books. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times Best Sellers list for Young Adult Hardcover, and won the Goldie Award for Young Adult Fiction by the Golden Crown Literary Society. She has also created a comic book, with the help of Naomi Franquiz and Marla Vazquez, based on her song “Gravel to Tempo”.
Kiyoko is a lesbian. She has stated that she knew she was attracted to girls when she was six years old, coming out to her parents in the sixth grade. Upon realizing she liked girls, she grew up struggling with those feelings, fearing rejection and judgment if she came out. Kiyoko wanted to inspire confidence in young people dealing with the same struggles. Kiyoko’s music is focused on her story and emotions she has experienced while coming to terms with her identity. The “This Side of Paradise” music video focuses on her struggles with expressing her true self and the “Gravel to Tempo” music video draws on her experiences with having crushes on girls while growing up. In a 2016 interview, she expressed her frustration about not connecting to people the way she wanted. When Lily May-Young, one of the co-writers for “Girls Like Girls”, asked Kiyoko what was something about herself that no one else knew and that she was afraid to sing about, Kiyoko said she wanted to sing about how she likes girls, but was struggling to be out about that. Tegan and Sara and Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” were Kiyoko’s turning point and inspiration to turn to pop music. Through her music, Kiyoko works to normalize lesbian relationships in a society and music industry that she sees as being very heteronormative:
“If you see two girls falling in love and normalizing that, then [people] can go, ‘I can fall in love, too. I can be that person. I can look like that. I can get a girl that looks like that.’ If they see that, then they can believe it. It’s just how we are.”