Beauty YouTuber Nikkie de Jager, known online as NikkieTutorials, has come out as transgender in an emotional clip, revealing she’s received blackmailing threats about her identity.
The Dutch influencer, 25, from the Netherlands has garnered more than 12.5 million subscribers on YouTube for her makeup tutorials and working with brands like Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs and Marc Jacobs Beauty, but she never shared her gender identity with followers over the 11 years in the industry.
All changed on Monday when de Jager created a coming out video detailing her transition from a man to a woman.
Big announcement: Nikkie de Jager, 25, who is known online as NikkieTutorials, announced she was transgender on YouTube Monday
Speaking out: The beauty influencer has more than 12.4 million subscribers. She revealed she fully transitioned by the age of 19
Her truth: She always intended to come out eventually, but people blackmailing her encouraged her to do it sooner rather than later
‘I’ve always wanted to share with you but under my own circumstances,’ de Jager said at the beginning of the 17-minute video, adding: ‘and it looks like that chance has been taken away from me. So today, I am taking back my own and I have to tell you something.’
De Jager goes on to state when she was younger she was ‘born in the wrong body’.
‘I am transgender,’ she emotionally said to the camera. ‘Filming this video is scary, but its so liberating and freeing…I’m NikkieTutorials, and I am Nikkie. I am me. We don’t need labels.’
In 2015, de Jager first gained viral recognition when her YouTube video The Power of Makeup gained attention across YouTube, launching her into the influencer sphere.
And she said she always intended to one day open up to her followers about her gender identity but could never quite figure out exactly how to do that. Making the video right now, though, was not her intention until she was forced into it by others.
The video goes on with de Jager revealing her mom was convinced she was having a girl before she was born.
‘Little did she know she was actually having a girl,’ de Jager said. ‘Growing up, I think the number one thing I’m the most thankful for is my mom — love you, Mom — because she has been there for me since day one.’
Her mom always knew, de Jager said, that Nikkie would end up gay or being transgender based on her interests in all things ‘girly’ from the beginning.
Love: De Jager is engaged to a man named Dylan, and she said he is aware she’s trans
Regrets: ‘He knows about my past, but I wish I’d told him sooner,’ she confessed during a 17-minute video about her gender identity
De Jager then started transitioning to fit that gender at the age of six years old by growing out her hair. She also was wearing only female clothes by the age of seven or eight.
‘Some kids got it, and other kids in my class did not, which is fine,’ de Jager said. ‘But I will always be so thankful for all the teachers at that school who supported my journey and supported me.’
One of the most ‘heartbreaking’ parts about de Jager’s gender identity, she revealed, was having the conversation with those who got close to her time and time again.
All de Jager wanted was to ‘close’ that chapter of her life where she transitioned.
‘But you can never close it off for good, and I am accepting that nowadays,’ she said.
At the age of 14, de Jager was receiving hormones. Also, she took ‘growth stoppers’ to prevent herself from growing taller than she already was, saying she’s a ‘tall b****’ already.
‘By the age of 19, I fully transitioned,’ she said. ‘I transitioned while I was on YouTube. I have grown up and transformed into me in front of all of you.’
Another topic de Jager covered during her video was her relationship with her fiance, Dylan, whom she keeps mostly private from followers. He at first didn’t know de Jager was transgender when they started dating.
‘He knows about my past, but I wish I’d told him sooner,’ she confessed. ‘Everything felt so magical, so good, that I was afraid to lose him if I were to tell my full story.’
Felling free: ‘This feels liberating and freeing, but I, at the end of the day, am still Nikkie,’ she said during her emotional video
The beginning: De Jager (pictured in 2008 in one of her first videos) always appeared as a woman on camera even though she was still transitioning at that point
Then and now: She fully transitioned by the age of 19 and started taking hormones at 14. Pictured left is de Jager in 2012 when she was 17 years old. Right is her now
It was now a ‘private matter’ the couple was dealing with, and de Jager asked followers to respect their privacy as they continued to work through her gender identity together.
De Jager coming out at this instance was largely fueled by people who wanted to ‘leak’ her story to news outlets.
‘I have been blackmailed by people who wanted to leak my story the press,’ she said, adding, ‘and at first it was frightening…that there are people so evil that they can’t respect someone’s true identity. It is vile, it is gross.’
These people, de Jager said, claimed they wanted to leak her story because they thought she was ‘lying’ to her followers. But the influencer was not going to let them threaten her life.
‘Today is the day I am free, finally,’ she said, addressing her ‘glow babies’.
‘The last thing I want for you [is] to not trust me anymore or look at me with different eyes or look at me in a different matter or think that I have changed…I am still Nikkie. The reason why the trans side of me never got to the light was I wanted my channel to be about my art.’
She added: ‘This feels liberating and freeing, but I, at the end of the day, am still Nikkie.’