Kris Tyson has officially come out as transgender.
“I am a woman,” the MrBeast star told fellow YouTuber Anthony Padilla in an interview published this weekend. “I’ve never said that publicly, but I’ve been fully confident in that decision for over a year now.”
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Kris explained that when she first started growing her hair out and making other changes to her appearance, she wasn’t quite sure of how to identify. She just knew she “was not cisgender.”
“For a while, I was trying gender fluid,” she continued. “I was like, what’s making me feel like I’m bi-gender? What is tying me to this masculinity? And really, it was after a lot of talking with a therapist and a lot of self-reflection, [that] I realized it was really just the societal pressure of, ‘You’re Chris from MrBeast. You’re the guy that starts the fires. You’re the guy that builds the stuff.’ And like, my whole life, I’ve enjoyed doing those things, but I’ve never really felt like ‘the guy.'”
In April, Kris announced that she’d started hormone replacement therapy in response to speculation about her appearance. She remembered how people were speculating then that it was her way of coming out as a trans woman. But Kris says it wasn’t. “I’m like, No, I didn’t! No, I didn’t…yet — until today.”
Kris shared that, moving forward, she has a new name she’ll be using privately among family and friends, but she’ll be going by Kris on the internet and using she/her pronouns.
When asked how she felt about finally being able to share that, Kris said: “For the longest time, even to say it to some of the closest friends, it would make my hands shake. I would get so nervous. But now, I can say I’m a woman. I’m happy to say I’m a woman. It’s something that’s honestly so freeing.”
<3 I’m so happy for you, Kris! You can watch her full interview here.