YouTube has influenced Nikita Dragun's life in more ways than one.
One of the platforms' biggest beauty influences—with over 3.55 million subscribers—Nikita's rise to fame coincided with her coming out journey, as she came out to fans as transgender in an emotional 2015 YouTube video.
But long before her social media success, the self-proclaimed "mother of draguns" was a makeup-loving kid growing up in Springfield, Virginia. Opening up about her coming out journey on E! News' digital series DRIVE!, she exclusively told host Austin J. Mills, "I always knew I was a little bit different."
"I was a little bit smaller than everyone, a little bit more feminine," she continued. "And being in a small town, I really didn't have that many friends, so I turned to online to try to make something of myself."
Nikita said that YouTube gave her the space to be her true, authentic self. "I just wanted to live an online life," she told Austin. "And being online, no one knew I was either a boy or a girl. They just saw me for me."
But the more her popularity rose, the more worried the 26-year-old became about publicly coming out. Eventually, the idea of continuing to feel "trapped in my life" became more important than other people's opinions.
"I decided, 'Okay, if I record a YouTube video and I come out on YouTube and I post it, then I'm just gonna have to deal with it,'" said Nikita. "And it ended up going viral."
That video, titled "I Am TRANSGENDER," has over 3.2 million views and remains one of her most-viewed videos to date.
"It was just so shocking," Nikita said of the reactions she got, adding that it served as her coming out to several family members, as well.
"They're like, 'Wait, you're huh?'" she joked. "That was my way of coming out online."
Oct. 11 is National Coming Out Day. Catch up on past episodes of DRIVE! now on E! Online and E! News' YouTube page.