Nikkie de Jager, the celebrated Dutch makeup artist on Youtube, in her newest video shared beyond a usual makeup-free face. On Jan. 13, she opened the door to her biggest secret from the beauty industry.

“I was born in the wrong body, which means that I am transgender,” de Jager says.

To start off, Nikkie admits she isn’t fond of people being labeled, despite our society is full of them. This was one of the main reasons behind keeping her “label” a secret. 

The purpose of Nikkietutorials is to express her creative talents and teach others to love themselves for loving makeup. Through her 2015 video, “The Power of MAKEUP!”, Nikkie rose to fame by counseling viewers to continue doing make-up, even if others don’t appreciate it.

How much Nikkie has grown with respect to her make-up skills, channel and confidence in “I’m Coming Out” is monumental compared to videos she made 11 years ago. She currently has 13.2 million subscribers and has done the makeup of prominent celebrities such as Lady Gaga and recently, Megan Trainor. Nikkie also stands amongst the top beauty influencers like James Charles and Jeffree Star. 

In “I’m Coming Out”, Nikkie also shares the process of her transition, from growing her hair out at the age of six to fully transitioning by 19 while making Youtube content. Surprisingly, her mother always was expecting to have a girl, and a girl she had.

Nikkie explains how grateful she is to have grown up in such a supportive environment, including that of her school, teachers  and especially her mother, “Mommatutorials.”

She hopes that through sharing her story, she can touch the hearts of others who may be in a situation as to herself and help them embrace their true selves.  

Aside from her accomplishments made in the beauty industry, she wants to empower her viewers to further express themselves. Nikkie once more defies conformity to societal taboos and preaches about the importance of certain qualities within a relationship.

She expresses that the qualities, “hearing, understanding, and respecting each other,” are prevalent in her relationship with her fiance, Dylan Drossaers, in allowing her to open up about that chapter of her life. Nikkie admits that she would have preferred telling him sooner, but she wanted to wait until she knew she could trust him and was in a safe relationship. 

Towards the end of the video, she admits to having been blackmailed by someone who wanted to reveal her identity. Despite this backlash, Nikkie being the thriving, “mother fluffing vrouw” she is, took her power back by creating this self-motivating video. 

The biggest takeaway from her video is that people can be whoever they want to be. 2020 is the year to not live in fear and to learn to accept and love yourself for who you are. Nikkie may be transgender but according to her, “at the end of the day I am me, and at the end of the day, you, are you.”