New Zealand social media star Jamie Curry announces same-sex engagement

After five months of radio silence on her YouTube channel of 1,200,000 followers, Jamie Curry has now explained her absence and the personal issues she had been grappling with.

During her time away she had become engaged to a woman, she said, having fallen in love for the first time.

Curry took to her preferred platform to confirm she had been dealing with issues of weight and struggling to identify her sexual identity ever since she left school more than four years ago.

The former Hawke's Bay teen is now based in Auckland and was making a living online.

New Zealand's most famed social media star started out filming amusing slice-of-life videos as a 16-year-old from her Taradale bedroom in 2012.

She explained in the video why she had taken a break from YouTube.

"I just wasn't happy.

"It started when I left high school. I didn't really have a direction or purpose or reason for why I was doing anything."

She said gaining weight had played a part in her unhappiness and comments from her followers had made her feel self-conscious.

"I didn't want to be on camera because I didn't feel comfortable with myself."

She said she had moved into a cottage an hour away from anyone she knew.

She spent eight months there but after the eight months she still felt depressed and did not find the answers she was looking for.

She explained she had questioned her sexuality and struggled to find which sexuality she felt she identified with.

"I tried to find my label.

"Am I gay? Am I bi?" she said.

She said the answer came when she fell in love with someone for the first time. The person turned out to be a woman.

"She makes me so happy."

She had since asked her girlfriend to marry her, and her girlfriend had said yes.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is reproduced here with permission.