Troye Sivan She's the Best video

Although gay men are plenty well-known for grafting from women (and often, the caricature of what it’s supposed “mean” to be a woman) while going on about “stanning” them (at least the ones who are coiffed and/or famous enough to be branded as “iconic”), it’s actually quite rare for them to show respect to their fellow queens. Indeed, it’s no secret that gay men can be as misogynistic as straight ones (just ask Tanya McQuoid from The White Lotus). But what Troye Sivan clearly wants to do with “She’s the Best,” his first single from the album of the same name, is convey that frequently missing element of respect (which is not the same as worship and imitation) while also still grafting from women. In particular, Charli XCX.

And, if anyone can attempt to emulate her, it’s Sivan. Not just because he was plenty capable of “studying” her while the two embarked on 2024’s co-headlining Sweat Tour, but because he’s been capable of studying her since the pair first became chummy in 2018 (which was also the year that Sivan met Nicole Kidman on the set of Boy Erased) after meeting at one of XCX’s famed L.A. house parties. But since the Sweat Tour was all about Charli’s Brat era (even as it tried to give Sivan “fair billing”), it seems that’s what has stuck most in Sivan’s mind. That is, if the sound and lyrics of “She’s the Best” are anything to go on. Not to mention its video, directed by Gordon von Steiner (who previously worked with Sivan on “Rush,” “Got Me Started” and “One of Your Girls”). A video that, from the very moment it starts, exudes the aesthetic ethos of Brat. This thanks to Nicole Kidman pulling up in a car wearing black sunglasses, dressed in minimalist black attire and having a skinny cigarette protruding from her mouth. Her aura of cool is largely because of her palpable “no fucks given” attitude. Again, the very essence of Brat.

Indeed, to add to the meta nature of Kidman effectively “playing” Charli here, it was the latter who cited one of her film’s characters as a key source of inspiration for “the energy of Brat.” Specifically, Suzanne Stone from 1995’s To Die For. Thus, it was no surprise that XCX posted a photo of herself in February of ‘25 wearing Balenciaga’s “Nicole” graphic tee, prompting Kidman to, in turn, reply to that image with, “Looks like I need to get myself a #brat shirt now.”

Though that wouldn’t be very “brat” at all, which is why, when Kidman showed up to Charli’s Brat Tour (obviously, she went “solo” after the Sweat Tour) for the May 4th show at Barclays Center, she was dressed, once again, in all black and black sunglasses. The Brat uniform (unless, of course, one is wearing a white tank top instead). Which she repurposes in a new way for Sivan’s video while embodying the reason why Charli was quoted in Kidman’s recent British Vogue cover story declaring, “She’s one of our last truly legendary movie stars.” In fact, XCX is even mentioned in that article as “a new pal (Kidman is always making new pals).” So, too, evidently, is Sivan. Or, if not that, a new goddess to worship. As he does while observing Kidman from behind the window of a restaurant as he describes, in that deadpan sort of Charli-as-Brat lilt, “She’s walking down the street with her little thin cigarette/Great smile and a cum stain on her…dress” (a lyric that feels like it should have warranted a cameo from Monica Lewinsky).

At the eighteen-second mark, von Steiner cuts to the interior of a messy, “artsy” apartment as Sivan continues to paint the picture, “DJs from Monday to Thursday/Don’t ask, she’s not taking any fucking requests.” Apart from the beat and tempo fully taking from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” (which is very Charli as well, especially since Reed and The Velvet Underground were additional sources of inspiration for Brat), there is also a tone of “Guess” to the “talking” nature of the song. However, the lyrical theme is strictly “Mean girls,” with XCX basically describing not only what a brat is, but also the exact kind of girl Sivan is talking about here when he says things like, “Quick drag, a rouge cheek, a blush lip/Eyeliner in her waterline and some/Contour on her tits/Night owl and somehow an early bird/She kind of just stays perpetually tired.”

By this point in the video, Sivan has already incorporated other types of women into the narrative, with Kidman walking through the backstage area where drag queens are putting on their maquillage. In this regard, Sivan wants to make certain that listeners know “She’s the Best” can apply to anyone who identifies as a proverbial bad bitch, gender be damned. And that’s in keeping with Sivan’s messaging in general and from 2023’s Something to Give Each Other—namely, on “One of Your Girls,” with a video that finds Sivan dressing in drag (albeit to cater to a straight guy’s homo-curious whims). Which is all part and parcel of where that abovementioned “gay men grafting from women” trope fits in.

Kidman seems to actually become aware of Sivan’s presence as a “narrator” in her life when she walks into the club where he’s singing, “That girl, that girl/That girl, that girl/That girl, that girl, wow.” As he says this, she takes a knowing sip from her glass. This done in a way that feels as if it’s meant to be a deliberate nod to how she drinks the glass of milk in Babygirl. A film that, appropriately, came out the same year as Brat. And, in her way, Kidman was already exemplifying that spirit in her Romy Mathis role, now bringing it to completion with this video that is, to reiterate, Sivan’s mash-up version of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and Charli’s “Guess” and “Mean girls.” The latter of which comes into play yet again with Sivan’s oh-so-specific characterization, “Pretty, funny, can fight/She always knew she had something special in-inside/She takes down an incel on the internet/When she needs just a little unwind.”

The further into the video it gets, the more Sivan and co-creative director Imogene Strauss (also a constant Charli collaborator) cast a wider net into all the “varietals” of women that fall under the category of “She’s the Best.” And, believe it or not, that even extends to some elderly women (or elderly men dressed as women)—a surprise considering that gay men don’t much like to revere any gender that’s deemable as “old.” Which, technically, Kidman could be by more narrow-minded people (of which there are many in the Gen Z demographic). And yet, she’s the most vibrant woman of the video—and not just because she’s its central focus. Granted, there’s also a central focus on trans women, reminding the J. K. Rowling types of the world not to be such TERFs. To that point, Kidman is also sure to mention toward the end of her British Vogue cover story, “I’ve said it before but I used to go to trans clubs. That’s where I learnt to do my hair and make-up. I would sit down as a little freckled-faced red-headed girl and they would make me beautiful.”

Just as Sivan is made beautiful yet again as well, also appearing in drag (as he did for “One of Your Girls”) during some kitchen scenes with Kidman that serve as part of a montage at the end of the video. One that seeks to highlight how so many kinds of women—non-Brat ones included—serve as a source of inspiration and light to others. Even men. Albeit mostly gay men. And Sivan, in discussing the creation of this track, found himself realizing over these last few years that “the only constant in my life keeping me somewhat sane has not been the work, or the men, but the feminine. Thank god for them.”

And, of course, thank God for Charli 1) creating Brat and 2) being quite keen to step away from it to explore a different sound on Music, Fashion, Film so that Sivan could shoot his shot at his own interpretation of the material. Something that XCX has clearly given her blessing on because, plot twist, it’s her vocals that round out the final repetition of the chorus, with Sivan confirming to Rolling Stone, “The vocal that you hear at the end of ‘She’s the Best,’ it’s Charli.” Perhaps Sivan’s way of saying that, when it comes to the women in his life, Charli herself is the best. Much to Kidman’s surprise.