Popular YouTube creator and makeup artist Nikkie de Jager revealed on Monday, January 13 that she is a transgender woman. The 25-year-old, who goes by NikkieTutorials, said in a video that while she had always planned to tell her fans one day, this move of hers was prompted by attempted blackmail. Someone threatened to expose her to the media without her consent. She felt that the chance to reveal her journey on her own terms was being taken away, “So I am taking back my own power,” de Jager said.

“I can’t believe I am saying this today to all of you, for the entire world to see, but damn it feels good to finally do it. It’s time to let go and be truly free,” de Jager said in the video. “When I was younger I was born in the wrong body, which means that I am transgender…I am Nikkie Tutorials, and I am Nikkie. I am me. We don’t need labels. If we are going to put labels on it—yes, I am transgender. But at the end of the day, I am me. And at the end of the day you are you.”

The reason she came out at this moment, Nikkie says, was to stand up for herself and the transgender community in the face of someone blackmailing her by threatening to out her in a leak to the press. She did not disclose when the threats began, who made them, or any specific details of the situation, but said she was starting this new year by coming out. She stood up for herself and hopes that her coming out video will help other trans people. “I hope that me standing up and being free, it inspires you to do the same…to truly live your life like you want it and the way you deserve it.”

De Jager has spent a large portion of her life on the YouTube platform, posting her first makeup tutorial video 11 years ago, according to her channel’s video listing. The Dutch creator has used her internet fame to launch several products, collaborating over the years with beauty brands such as Ofra, Maybelline and Too Faced.

The YouTuber said she felt like a girl from as early as she can remember. De Jager began transitioning at a young age, with the support of her mother and many of her teachers when she started to grow her hair out and wear girls clothing. She “fully transitioned” by the age of 19, about five years after she began hormone therapy. The YouTuber told fans she hoped they understood she was still the same Nikkie as she always showed on camera and that they would still continue to care about her.

“At the end of the day, my story is beautiful,” Nikkie says in the video, choking up while explaining how beauty and YouTube have often given her a means of escape. “All I know is that I haven’t changed.” De Jager ended her video with a recurring segment for her channel where she explained a Dutch word for the day. She chose “vrouw,” or the Dutch word for woman.

Nikkie’s message was very inspiring, helping to confront this harmful behavior in the name of eliminating dangerous ideas about trans identity. Because she is such a well-known figure in the beauty world and on YouTube, Nikkie is in a rare position to use her voice and platform to spread awareness of the discrimination that trans people face in society.