The 25-year-old YouTuber with over 12 million followers came out in a video posted on her YouTube channel after a blackmail attempt.
Nikkie de Jager, the popular Dutch YouTuber known to her millions of followers as Nikkie Tutorials, revealed in a video posted on her YouTube channel Monday that she is a transgender woman. In the video, de Jager says that she’d wanted to share her trans status with her followers on her channel, but to do so in her own time.
“It looks like that chance has been taken away from me, so today I am taking back my own power,” she said in the video, entitled “I’m Coming Out.”
“I can’t believe I am saying this today to all of you, for the entire world to see, but damn it feels good to finally do it. It’s time to let go and be truly free,” she said.
Explaining that she’d avoided previously discussing her trans status due to a dislike for labels, de Jager nonetheless was open about the fact that she is transgender. “I am NikkieTutorials, and I am Nikkie. I am me. We don’t need labels,” she said in the video. “But if we are going to put a label on it, yes, I am transgender.”
De Jager said that her decision to reveal her trans status wasn’t her choice, but the result of her being “blackmailed by people that wanted to leak my story to the press.” Instead of cooperating with the blackmailers, who she declined to name, de Jager chose to publicly reveal her transgender status.
De Jager has been posting videos on her YouTube channel for 11 years, and has in that time collaborated with makeup brands like Maybelline, Ofra, and Too Faced. Since being posted Monday, her “I’m Coming Out.” video has racked up over 18 million views, and became the top trending video on YouTube.
In the video, de Jager elaborated that she began her transition at an early age, beginning hormone therapy at the age of 14 and fully transitioning when she was 19. This means that her transition and the growth of her YouTube channel took place alongside one another over the past decade.
“I transitioned while on YouTube,” de Jager said in the video. “And saying that right now seems so crazy to me, because I have literally grown up and transformed into me in front of all of you.”
Watch Nikkie de Jager’s “I’m Coming Out.” video below:
Top Image via screencap