When pop singer Hayley Kiyoko wrote her signature song “Girls Like Girls” (over 150 million streams on Spotify) with Owen Thomas and Lily-May Young in 2015, it was aspirational — an “I Want” song for lesbian manifestation. Kiyoko says the tune is “about being a person I wasn’t at the time,” including being “confident, going after the girl, getting the girl.”
When she sat in the director’s chair alongside Austin S. Winchell for the music video — which now has over 160 million views — she says she “was not confident enough” to put herself in the starring role. Instead, she came up with a story about a teen girl named Coley (Stefanie Scott in the original music video, who would later cowrite the film) who is in love with her best friend who has a boyfriend.
Pop artist and film director Hayley Kiyoko on our digital Pride coverPhoto by Grace Scuitto; Styling by Avigail Collins; Makeup by Marla Vazquez; Hair by Abe Esparza
Eleven years later, on June 19, 2026, Focus Features will release a film version of that story — which Kiyoko also published as a book in 2023 — in theaters. It marks Kiyoko’s feature directorial debut, and stars Maya da Costa as Coley and Myra Molloy as Sonya, alongside Levon Hawke and Zach Braff. In addition to her Hollywood success, Kiyoko has found love and a healthy relationship with her fiancée, Bachelor star Becca Tilley.
Myra Molloy as Sonya and Maya da Costa as Coley in Hayley Kiyoko's 'Girls Like Girls'Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
“It’s like I kind of manifested that when I wasn’t there yet,” Kiyoko says. “And here we are, I’ve directed a feature film, I love who I am, I can scream at the top of my lungs, ‘girls like girls like boys do,’ and I fully believe that, and I fully have that confidence now.”
For the newly confident Kiyoko, casting an actor to play this aspirational teen character she’s been thinking about for over a decade was “an out-of-body experience.”
“I’ve always dreamt of, Who is Coley? What does she look like? Where does she come from?” Kiyoko says.
When she watched the audition tape from da Costa, a Canadian actor who had previously played a teen in the award-winning, true-crime drama miniseries Under the Bridge, Kiyoko knew she was the only person for the role.
Maya da Costa as Coley in 'Girls Like Girls'Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
“I just saw like, everything, I saw the world, I saw her,” Kiyoko says. “She’s so magnetic, she’s so authentic. She was 18 when we shot this film, and you really feel it. She allows herself to shine and also process what she’s going through in a teenage way, which is kind of messy.”
Capturing a specifically queer teen experience in Coley and Sonya’s relationship was crucial to Kiyoko’s vision for the production. Unable to verbalize their attraction to one another until late in the film, the girls fall in love through a series of whispered secrets, bedroom dances, backseat cuddles, and devastating eye contact.
Myra Molloy as Sonya in 'Girls Like Girls'Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
“My experience growing up queer and knowing that I was a lesbian for almost all my life and hiding that, I developed this language of silence. And a lot of my experiences and relationships and situationships were without words,” Kiyoko says. “You know, it was a hand on a thigh, it was a glance, it was a look, and for me, I feel like that’s such a vital part of the queer experience. You’re not always able to share outwardly what is going on.”
When the “Girls Like Girls” music video came out in June 2015, it was just two days before same-sex marriage was legalized in the United States through Obergefell v. Hodges. While Kiyoko has worked hard to become the confident and happy queer person she dreamed of being in “Girls Like Girls,” in some ways, queer rights and representation have gone backward.
Hayley Kiyoko directs actor Myra Molloy in her new feature film 'Girls Like Girls'Dan Power / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
Recent Disney and Pixar projects like the series Win or Lose and the films Inside Out 2 and Elio have been edited either to remove a character’s queerness or to make characters seem “less gay.” GLAAD’s 2025 Studio Responsibility Index showed a 3.7 percent decrease in queer characters in movies over the last year, and an 11 percent decrease in queer characters with over 10 minutes of screen time.
“We need more hopeful queer stories that are being supported by studios — and being able to buy a ticket and go to the theater and be with community — as opposed to it being kind of in the background,” Kiyoko says. When she wrote the song, Kiyoko felt queer rights “were having more steps forward,” but now, in this time when the film is coming out, “I feel like we’ve taken 10 steps back.”
Myra Molloy, Hayley Kiyoko, and Maya da Costa take a break while filming 'Girls Like Girls'Dan Power / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
“My hope has been to not only make a queer film but an unapologetically queer film. The film is called Girls Like Girls. It is not hiding behind anything. It is just who she is. And I’m so proud of that,” Kiyoko adds. “And I’m so excited for young queer people to get to see a film so boldly unapologetic during such a heightened political time and a scary time for our community.”
“I hope that it can be just a moment of relief and a safe space for people to go to the theater and know that every person in that theater is their community wherever they live,” she adds.
Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
Kiyoko says that the film coming out feels oddly “like the beginning of an era” instead of the end. “It’s been a 10-year journey, and through every medium, I’ve been able to get closer and closer to my authentic truth, right? There was the song, and then the music video, and then the book,” she says. “And so piece by piece, I’ve been like an onion peeling to my authentic truth, and now this feature film exists, and this is my most authentic version of this story of Girls Like Girls.”
“I hope it inspires people to never give up on their relationships with others or themselves,” Kiyoko says. “Because it may take 10 years, but you will get there.”
Girls Like Girls comes out June 19 in theaters.
This article is part of Out’s May-June 2026 print issue, on newsstands now. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News+, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader.
