Hayley Kiyoko On Girls Like Girls & Making The Queer Coming-Of-Age Movie She Never Had

We have a series at Refinery29 called “Blank Made Me Gay” where writers unpack pieces of media from their youth that led to or affirmed their sexual awakenings. For Gabriel Korn, it was the early 2000s TV show Alias, specifically Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristowe in Alias. For Hilary Weaver, it was the 2015 film Carol, specifically Cate Blanchett as Carol in Carol. For young people struggling with their queerness and the suffocating anxiety of coming out in a world that tends to force folks to declare their identities to the world whether they’re ready or not, TV and movies can be a safe space to explore those feelings privately, before they become public. For some, pop culture is where you find the words before you know how to articulate them, where a sexy spy show can become a metaphor for your undercover lesbianness, or Cate Blanchett seductively lighting a cigarette can light a fire in you that pushes you out of the closet. For me, 1999’s But I’m A Cheerleader didn’t give me the language to know I was bisexual back then (an identity I’m still not fully comfortable claiming since I’m married to a man I’ve been with for 15 years), but I knew that obsessively sneak watching my secret copy of the movie made me feel freer and more myself than I had the words for at the time.

I hope Hayley Kiyoko’s Girls Like Girls gives this generation of young people the same feeling. I hope it helps them find the words they’ve been searching for, and that they get to experience the moving coming-of-age story proudly and in public — in theaters! The thought of a young girl, especially girls of color, going into a theater to see Girls Like Girls and walking out feeling more themselves and more free to love whoever they want is why I was sobbing during my screening of the film. Delivering that emotional and relatable movie experience has been the goal Kiyoko has been working towards for over a decade.

Girls Like Girls started as a song in 2016, then evolved into a New York Times bestselling YA novel in 2023, and now, the concept has reached its final form: a stirring, intimate, portrait of grief, teen angst, adolescent anxiety, and first love. Starring Maya da Costa and Myra Molloy, Girls Like Girls is a revelation, a simultaneously urgent and ordinary story of two girls falling in love and finding themselves. When I meet Kiyoko in Toronto, it’s at Hopeless Romantic Bookshop, where copies of Girls Like Girls are on full display and a lineup of young folks eager to meet her snakes around the block. Kiyoko tells me her younger self would be “shocked” at the life she’s leading now: a pop star her fans have hailed as their “Lesbian Jesus,” a bestselling author and first-time director, and engaged to her “beautiful” fianceé Becca Tilley (the couple got engaged last year). The life Kiyoko is leading, and the work she’s creating, is a beacon of hope — one I wish both of our younger selves had. 

Here, Kiyoko talks about queer joy during Pride under the current administration, the 10-year journey of making Girls Like Girls and the importance of sapphic love stories amidst the current romance boom in Hollywood. 

Refinery29: I cried so much in this movie. I was thinking about how much I needed it when I was a teenager. How cathartic has this whole process been for teenage Hayley? 

Hayley Kiyoko: This film is my love letter to my younger self. To think about what the impact would have been to be able to buy tickets to a movie like this in a theater, and to see myself reflected on the big screen, and to know that I’m not alone in my experience would have absolutely altered my journey of self love and discovery and hardship. I placed so much hardship on myself [and so did] society in general.

I can imagine that as you’re making this and as you’re thinking of the people who are going to watch it, that you might have a message you want to give to the girls who like girls who are still working through it all. 

HK: I mean, we’re all on our own timelines, and as you watch Coley and Sonia and the messiness of just navigating new love and new feelings, it’s very normal for it to be a little messy and for it to evolve in their own time. So my message to everyone is: I hope that this film can heal different parts of our hearts that maybe we thought were healed, but or have been like abandoned or not catered to or embraced, because we deserve to be thriving as queer people, as queer women of color, we deserve to take up immense space, whether it’s books, movies, television shows, and that’s what Girls Like Girls is all about. It’s unapologetically girls like girls, we’re not hiding behind anything, and I’m so proud to be queer.

I’m so happy that this exists. Of course, it’s Pride month. And June has a special place in your heart for the journey of Girls Like Girls, right? Tell me about that journey. 

HK: It’ll be 11 years in two weeks. It’s been a very long, hard journey to get to this moment. I think queer women — just women of color — represent 5% of the industry, and so to be a part of that 5% feels like such an honor, but also it’s been a lot of hard work to break that glass ceiling and to get my foot into the door. So I look at the song and the music video, which I wasn’t in, to now, where I have two Asian leads on the big screen authentically representing the characters, I think that even just that arc shows my compassion for myself and the rewiring that I felt of seeing people who look like me as the main character and my self-love and journey.

Right now, there’s so much conversation about queer romance being front and center because of Heated Rivalry. What we’re seeing, though, is a lot like gay romance and not lesbian romances. What I love about Girls Like Girls is that it’s unapologetically queer, but it’s also unapologetically lesbian. Talk about the importance of seeing sapphic romance onscreen, specifically.

HK: It’s so important. I mean, try to name 20 films that you were able to see on the big screen for sapphic lesbians — you can’t. I’m so grateful for Heated Rivalry’s success, and there’s been so much representation for gay men, and so I’m excited to try to fill that hole that we’ve had for sapphic women, just women in general. We have to fight a little bit harder, and so we’re in the fight. Girls Like Girls is here for us. I’ve done this for my community, and all of you. Whether you’re queer or not, every single person has had that moment where you had to confront somebody, and felt that fear of confrontation, of ‘do you like me or not? Am I about to be validated, or am I about to be rejected?’ And that’s the journey that this film takes you on.

Absolutely. I felt 16 again. Right now, I think we can’t talk about Pride without acknowledging that at this moment, especially in the US, that it is a tough time for the queer community. Rights are being rolled back, and it’s just scary. So, tell me about releasing this in the middle of Pride at this very moment.

HK: When I released Girls Like Girls, the music video that was two days before same-sex marriage was legalized. So to look at that political climate to now in 2026 and where we are as queer people in our community. We’re still fighting for safety and equality and spaces to feel heard and seen. I feel like we’ve taken six steps forward and then also 12 steps backwards. I am so honored to be able to release Girls Like Girls during this time, unfortunately, because we need queer joy, we need hope, we need escapism. We have to fill our cup up. We’re out here fighting for one another and showing up for one another, and we have to be able to fill our cup up to continue the fight, because the fight is not over. We’ve been doing this for hundreds of years, the ancestors even before us. This film was for every generation.

It’s the perfect time for joy. I love that you use that word, and I just saw you were just at a very joyful Pride event with your fiance, Becca. She’s also in the credits of this film. Can you speak to how she contributed and how important it was to have her throughout this process?

HK: I’ve been so fortunate to have such a wonderful, loving relationship and partner. We’ve been together for eight years, this movie’s taken me 10, so she has been a part of the tears and the hardships, the ‘what am I doing?’, and ‘will this ever exist?’ moments. So to be able to go into the theaters and celebrate this moment with my fiancé, knowing that this movie is capturing such a pivotal moment in my life, where I truly believed I never was going to find love, even within myself. So it feels like a massive journey, and I’m so appreciative of her support, because I couldn’t have done it without her.

As you were talking, I was thinking of the Haley that you mentioned, the one who did not ever think that she would find love. What do you think she would say now?

HK: I think if my younger self saw me today, she’d be shocked. She’d be shocked that I would take the nickname “Lesbian Jesus.” She would be shocked that I was engaged to this beautiful woman. I think she would just be in absolute awe. And I think that that’s the whole point of representation. The hope is where you are now is not where you’re going to be in 10 years, and that’s okay, that it’s part of life, that’s part of evolution, it’s part of building who we truly are. It’s interesting, we are constantly editing ourselves, and then we’re constantly returning to ourselves, and my hope and goal that Girls Like Girls can be for people is a beacon of hope for people to return to who they truly are and allow themselves in the space to be themselves because it took me a long time to get there.

I’m tearing up just listening to you talk, thinking about all of the young girls who are gonna watch this, and who have you. Thank you so much, Haley, for your work, and for everything.

HK: Don’t cry, I’ll cry [laughs]. 

Girls Like Girls hits theaters this Friday, June 19, 2026.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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