21 Best Gay YouTubers to Subscribe to in 2026

James Charles is the most-subscribed gay YouTuber on the platform. He became the first male brand ambassador for CoverGirl in 2016, at seventeen, after a tweet of his makeup went viral.

He has since hosted the YouTube Originals competition series Instant Influencer and built a makeup line with Morphe. His career has drawn real controversy along the way, but his reach remains enormous.

Jeffree Star came up on MySpace as a musician before reinventing himself as a beauty mogul. His channel mixes brutally honest product reviews with high-drama vlogs.

Jeffree Star Cosmetics turned him into one of the wealthiest creators on the platform. He is also among the most divisive figures in beauty, with a long record of public feuds.

Joey Graceffa came out in 2015 with something nobody had tried before. Instead of a sit-down video, he spent a reported sixty thousand dollars on a fantasy music video for his song “Don’t Wait,” ending it with a kiss.

It has been watched more than forty million times. He runs four channels, created the YouTube Premium series Escape the Night, and competed twice on The Amazing Race.

Bretman Rock went viral with a contouring video in 2015 and turned that moment into a full career. The Filipino-American creator, raised in Hawaii, blends makeup with a comic persona nobody else could pull off.

He starred in MTV’s Following: Bretman Rock and in 2021 became the first openly gay man on the cover of Playboy. He has a People’s Choice Award for beauty influencer.

Troye Sivan started as a teenage vlogger and came out in an August 2013 video called simply “Coming Out.” He has said it was one of the hardest things he ever posted.

He became a genuine pop star, with albums, a Golden Globe nomination for the song “Revelation,” and acting roles. He is also the most prominent name here among Australian YouTubers.

Tyler Oakley uploaded his first video from a Michigan State dorm room in 2007 and never made a coming-out video, because he was already out at thirteen. That made him a rarity in the early YouTube era.

He has raised millions for The Trevor Project, written a bestselling book, and released the documentary Snervous. As a 2007 starter he is a genuine OG YouTuber.

Daniel Howell, once danisnotonfire, came out in 2019 with a video called “Basically I’m Gay” that ran nearly forty-five minutes and was watched millions of times. It is one of the most-discussed coming-out videos on the platform.

He presented on BBC Radio 1 with his partner Phil Lester and has written two bestselling books on mental health. He quit YouTube in 2022 and returned soon after.

Manuel Gutierrez was one of the first male beauty creators to reach real scale on YouTube. In 2017 he became the first male ambassador for a Maybelline campaign.

He founded the cosmetics brand Lunar Beauty in 2018. He was raised Mormon and has spoken openly about reconciling that upbringing with being gay.

Patrick Simondac built his channel on the idea that makeup has no gender. The Filipino-American creator grew up Catholic in Orlando and turned a MAC counter job into a career.

His MAC collaboration was one of the first major creator makeup collections, and he later released a line with Disney. He founded the brand One/Size.

Thomas Sanders was one of the biggest stars on Vine, with 8.3 million followers and 7.4 billion loops, before moving to YouTube when the platform closed.

His series Sanders Sides casts him as multiple aspects of his own personality, and it handles anxiety and self-acceptance with real warmth. He came out in June 2017.

Connor Franta’s 2014 coming-out video is one of the most influential ever posted. Joey Graceffa has since said watching it gave him the courage to come out himself.

A former member of the collab channel Our2ndLife, Franta has written bestselling books and runs a coffee brand and a music label. His aesthetic shaped a whole era of lifestyle YouTube.

Phil Lester posted his first vlog in March 2006, filmed on a black-and-white camera he won from a cereal box. That makes him one of the very first notable British YouTubers.

He and Daniel Howell have been partners since 2009 and run the joint channel Dan and Phil alongside their solo work. His style is gentle, surreal, and completely his own.

Todrick Hall reached the top of American Idol’s ninth season, then built a YouTube career on ambitious original songs, parodies, and choreography. His first viral video was him singing his order at a McDonald’s drive-through.

He has directed for Taylor Swift, judged RuPaul’s Drag Race, and produced full visual albums. He is one of the most successful Black gay creators on the platform.

Davey Wavey has been posting since 2007, making him one of the longest-running gay creators anywhere. He grew up in a conservative Catholic family in Rhode Island and came out at sixteen.

His channel tackles sex, relationships, and coming out with a directness most creators avoid. For a lot of viewers he was the first openly gay adult they ever watched.

Jack Edwards is the biggest name in BookTube. The Durham graduate reviews novels, reads celebrities’ book recommendations, and documents student life with very dry English humour.

His old college credited a rise in applications to what staff called “the Jack Edwards effect.” He is now a published author himself.

Terrell Grice hosts The Terrell Show, where singers play a game called Song Association that has become genuinely famous in music circles. Artists queue up to appear.

The South Carolina native has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award and named to The Root 100. He is among the most respected Black gay YouTubers working today.

Brian Firkus and Brian McCook, better known as Trixie Mattel and Katya, host one of the funniest double acts on YouTube. Their series UNHhhh became a cult favourite and won them Streamy Awards.

Trixie has built a wider empire including a cosmetics line and the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs. The pair also hosted the 2020 Streamy Awards.

The Rhodes twins posted a video called “Twins Come Out To Dad,” filming themselves phoning their father to tell him they are both gay. It has been watched more than twenty million times.

The video took them onto The Ellen DeGeneres Show with their dad. They went on to act in the series Scream Queens and still post lifestyle and comedy content.

MarkE Miller was half of one of YouTube’s best-known gay couples alongside Ethan Hethcote. Their vlogs ran for about five years and are credited by many viewers with helping them come out.

The pair split in 2018 and posted a notably gracious breakup video about it. He continues to make comedy and lifestyle content solo.

Ethan Hethcote built his channel alongside MarkE Miller, and the two were among the most-watched gay couples of YouTube’s mid-2010s era. Their audience was enormous for the niche at the time.

Since the split he has moved into fitness and lifestyle content. He remains a familiar face to anyone who grew up on that generation of queer YouTube.

Terrell and Jarius Joseph are a married Black gay couple raising children together, and their channel documents family life with real humour. They have a much larger audience on Instagram.

Their content matters because gay fatherhood is still rarely shown at this scale. They are among the most visible gay couple YouTubers making family content today.