Meet Gigi Perez, the LGBTQ icon making waves with ‘Sailor Song’: the Billboard hit has turned the TikTokker into a rising star who’s now signed to the same label as Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan
She credits her late sister and her experience of growing up gay in a conservative environment for inspiring her music, and names Ariana Grande as her favourite artist
Dubbed “the lesbian love song”, Gigi Perez’s hit single “Sailor Song” went viral on social media platforms, peaked at 28 on the Billboard Hot 100, and topped the charts in the UK and Ireland.
Perez, 24, has been releasing music for several years. In 2021, her songs “Celene” and “Sometimes (Backwood)” went viral on TikTok. Despite her initial success, it wasn’t until she released “Sailor Song” in July of this year that she was propelled into the spotlight.
Here’s everything you need to know about the up-and-coming singer-songwriter Gigi Perez.
She is a lesbian
Gianna Brielle Perez was born on February 4, 2000, in Hackensack, New Jersey. When she was five or six years old, her family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida where she was raised.
In a podcast interview on Bringin’ it Backwards in 2022, Perez mentioned that she grew up attending a religious school: “I went to a Christian school and growing up gay in an environment where you’re not allowed to be that was very taxing on me,” she said.
Her musical career was partly inspired by her late sister
One of Perez’s viral songs, “Celene”, is named after and dedicated to her older sister, who died in 2020.
In the same 2022 podcast interview, Perez reveals how her sister, who was only two years older, was her main introduction to music. Celene took part in her school’s music theatre group and was an opera singer.
And while Perez says she always felt a connection to music, she never pursued it seriously until she turned 15 and wrote her first song.
TikTok fame and signing a record deal
