2023 Rewind: 'We Broke Up' – Influencers Nicky Champa and Pierre Boo Split

This piece is part of EDGE's 2023 Rewind series. We're reaching into our archives and sharing some of our favorite stories from the past year.

Popular gay influencers Nicky Champa and Pierre Boo have decided to end their marriage. Boo announced the split in a July 9 post on Instagram Stories that simply said, "We broke up."

A second slide added: "I am so sorry everyone."

A third slide showed a broken heart emoji.

Champa told Out Magazine that the couple's relationship became a "brand" that he felt trapped in.

"I think as you age, you kind of realize different things," Champa, 27, told Out. "Then on top of it, the social media aspect of it and people constantly comparing ourselves to each other and the pressure of maintaining this image. It almost became, I would tell people, like a 'Black Mirror' episode."

Adding that he could only "speak for myself," Champa said that "it was almost like I felt trapped within an ideology of what we've become."

"I lost myself in this relationship, incredibly," Champa explained. "I sacrificed a lot for this relationship. I dedicated myself to this relationship and the brand that we were building.

"I think that at this stage in my life, I had to choose me and pick me first." Champa said that Pierre "had to do the same, and that's the direction we're heading in."

Another factor, Out reported, was the nine-year age difference, with Boo being the older party at 36.

The news follows a July 1 TikTok video in which Champa declared that he felt "lost."

@nickychampa "Sending love to everyone whos trying their best to heal from the things that they dont discuss"
♬ original sound - Nicky

A couple of weeks earlier, Boo posted a flirtatious video to Instagram in which he asks, "Did it hurt? When you fell from the vending machine? Cuz you be lookin like a snack."

Champa's comments suggested that the split was amicable. "I want to say I have nothing but love and respect for this person," he said of Boo. "I spent my entire twenties with this person. I grew up with this person. He's a very special person and will always remain that way for me."

Out noted that the former couple are "known for their respective TikTok accounts (Nicky has 13.3 million followers and Pierre has 13.7 million, at the time of writing)," but that in the beginning they "made a name for themselves creating content about their daily lives and travels as a gay couple."

"The two also shared a joint YouTube account, where they had nearly 2.5 million subscribers tuning into their videos."

Those ventures fell off some time ago, however, with the last joint Instagram post being in May of 2021 and their most recent YouTube post being eight months old.

The ex-couple will no longer be co-creators of content, Out relayed. Champa told the publication that his "biggest goal" would be to "find my voice."

"I think that for a long time I was kind of shadowed by the brand that we created and I didn't have the platform or space to be myself," Champa said. "That's what my focus will be going forward."

He said that he now intends to "focus more on acting and modeling.... and also social media on top of it."

As previously reported, Champa and Boo secretly got married in August of 2022 after having been together for more than six years. The secret was out after TMZ unearthed their Las Vegas marriage certificate.