An incredibly earnest scene from Netflix's wildly absurdist animated series BoJack Horseman served as inspiration for Heartthrob Robb when naming his new album. Season 4, episode 8, titled "The Judge," shows Hollyhock — a young character established as being adopted and raised by a very supportive group of eight gay fathers — asking BoJack, "Do you ever get that feeling that, like, to know you more is to love you less?"
The Mexican-Italian rapper, model, and self-described "sexual being" built his viral breakthrough with a freestyle remix of Rihanna's "Cake." That was Robb's first time going fully explicit in his music, a move rewarded with greater visibility, deeper access to queer spaces, and a new reason for gay fans to explore his body of work. Nearly 15 years later, Robb releases To Know Me More, Is to Love Me Less, an album that uses his own persona as a tool to unmask itself.
"My father always taught me that presentation dictates perception. He was an artist, like me, and I grew up believing that anything we touch should be made beautiful," Robb tells Out, reflecting on how this project came from an entirely different place. "I didn't make this album to be liked or please anyone. I made it because I needed it."
Heartthrob Robb Trevor Paul @trevorpaul.photos
The album was released during Super Bowl weekend as a symbolic "return to the game" for Robb, who also wore the Willy Chavarria América jersey in the "I'm Good" music video to "stand boldly in my Mexican identity."
"I'm a blend of Mexican and Italian heritage, though my Mexican identity was more present in my upbringing," he explains. In hindsight, "seeing someone like Bad Bunny flourish unapologetically in his truth" as a Puerto Rican artist headlining the Halftime Show also "reinforces my own resolve to keep pushing forward, whether or not I'm fully understood."
Robb wrote every song, collaborated on beats, directed visuals, styled himself, scouted locations, and edited videos for the project — which was also self-funded. Beyond references to selfhood and heritage, To Know Me More unpacks the story of a man whose love fades into anger, grief, and reckoning, each emotion channeled separately and meticulously.
"When I fall in love, I fall hard," the rapper says, describing himself as a "Taurus: loyal, stubborn, and slow to let go."
Heartthrob RobbTrevor Paul @trevorpaul.photos
Robb's personal and artistic reckoning in To Know Me More is far from isolated among queer musicians. One multihyphenate, Trixie Mattel, first discussed taking a break from releasing original music in May 2024, arguing: "I want to make music. But if I don't have this wig on, no one will pay attention. But because I have this wig on, no one will take it seriously. So then what?"
Throughout the new album, Robb wrestles with a fantasy of his own making — one that, much like drag, was informed and entertained by external projections and perceptions. "Any expression of sexual agency, especially confident gay male sexuality, still triggers discomfort in a heteronormative society," he says, reasoning that this is why "gay musicians exist within a comfort zone that doesn't threaten straight audiences. Gay sex, when presented without apology, still scares people."
Things don't seem easier with gay audiences, either. "In some cases," Robb says, "gay men won't champion other gay men who embody archetypes" that feel triggering. "Instead, you're reduced to ornamentation: meant to be seen, but not heard."
Beyond drawing inspiration from Lil' Kim's "brash, bold, unapologetic command of her sexuality," Robb references Moira Rose, the Schitt's Creek character played by the late, great Catherine O'Hara: Why, yes, he does plan to "take as many naked pictures of myself" as he can while feeling "blessed enough to do so," as advised by the character in an iconic monologue from the Emmy-winning series cowritten by father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy.
Heartthrob RobbTrevor Paul @trevorpaul.photos
Self-assurance is an earned skill, not an inherited trait, but that truth often gets lost in the discourse about queer heartthrobs. Robb, for one, says that he "grew into my physical appearance much faster than I grew into my confidence."
Being "raised under Western, Eurocentric beauty standards," Robb always saw himself "as an awkward, gangly art geek." That all changed, he recalls, after being discovered and signed to a modeling contract in high school. "The shift in how people treated me was jarring…suddenly, the attention wasn't about what I created."
Ironically, "heartthrob" was first thrown at him "by a homophobic classmate" as an insult, Robb says. "But the girls in school loved it."
Though it's been officially reclaimed for his own benefit, "the 'heartthrob' element was never something I was able to shake, no matter how much I tried," he confesses. "Unless I chose to hide or deliberately shrink myself, which I wasn't willing to do."
Heartthrob RobbTrevor Paul @trevorpaul.photos
Writing remains Robb's favorite part of the artistic process, where "tapping into something beyond" himself feels within reach. That passion for lyricism is turned all the way up on To Know Me More, Is to Love Me Less for any fans willing to engage with the first part of the title.
The opening track, "Tipsy," by far the softest and most vocally vulnerable song on the album, is Robb's proudest record for how it "encapsulates the intense love of that moment in time." With vocals that lean more on "intensity" than "ability," Robb finds a sweet spot of "raw lush emotion" that caught even him by surprise.
"Somebody," a lyrical math equation for conditional love that threads resilience, acceptance, and restraint all into one heartbreaking run, feels like "walking through fire as though I'm not being burned," Robb explains.
In the dizzying "Whiskey Blues," we meet a combative couple that can't seem to have a fight without including a "feature" — an emotional guest verse, so to speak — and a shot of "booze," "blues," or both. "That line was intentionally written to be slightly indecipherable on first listen," Robb says. "It's both 'booze' and 'blues.' Each of us brought one of those elements into every argument, and that dynamic ultimately led to our separation."
"This album was made for me at a time when I genuinely wasn't sure what would come next," Robb reflects.
Does he hope that fans take away anything in particular? "I hope listeners find echoes of themselves in my work: bravado, self-reflection, resilience, intimacy," he says. "If someone feels seen, understood, or liberated through my music, then I've done exactly what I intended."
To Know Me More, Is To Love Me Less is available on all music streaming platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music.
