JoJo Siwa is ecstatic about the love and support she’s received since coming out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
The 18-year-old singer reveals in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly that she’s “finally the happiest that I’ve ever been,” and that “literally everyone on planet Earth” reached out to her after she made the announcement back in January. She’s since clarified that she is “technically” pansexual but also comfortable identifying as gay.
“The night that I came out, Iggy Azalea actually texted me. She was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so happy for you. This is amazing,'” recalls Siwa, who is dating her best friend turned girlfriend, Kylie Prew. “It was like 3 a.m. at this point. This was before Kylie and I were on FaceTime every single night sleeping. We talked for a while and I got to tell her everything. It was really sweet. She was there as a friend.”
Other celebrities that have showed their support include Mollee Gray, Abby Lee Miller, Kim Kardashian West, Paris Hilton, Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Nas X.
Siwa says that while she always knew she wasn’t straight since she was a little girl, there were “so many signs” that other people missed. “I mean, I wore a rainbow on the top of my head almost every day of my life,” she jokes. “And any time I could have anything rainbow, I would get rainbow. June’s my favorite month to shop because of all the Pride clothes.”
“I had the world convinced. I really did,” she adds. “I think I even had myself convinced, honestly. I gave it a shot and I was like, ‘This isn’t for me.'”
Throughout the interview, Siwa also opens up about her upcoming projects — like her Nickelodeon and Awesomeness movie musical The J Team and going back on tour in 2022 — as well as her dreams for the future, which include hopefully making a “gay pop” record one day.
“Being called a gay icon, honestly, I think is the biggest honor. About a year ago, I started having all these music meetings just for fun, just getting my head where I want to go,” the former Dance Moms star shares. “And I told all these producers, ‘I want to create gay pop, and I want to have a concert for the girls and for the gays.’ Turns out a year later, I am very much so gay.”
Siwa is also starring in Bounce, an adaptation of Megan Shull’s young adult novel, as a teenage girl named Franny who is granted a Christmas wish to trade in her difficult family for another one. She tells EW that she had to film a kissing scene for the film, one she is hoping will be cut.
“I’m madly in love and I do not want to kiss another human. Especially because it’s a man,” she explains, telling the outlet she believes her fans will perceive it as her real self kissing someone else, not as Siwa the actress. “That’s what they look at me as, not some character, not some fictional thing. And so it’s going to be a little weird.”
“I’m not about it,” she adds. “I’m trying to get it pulled so bad. It’ll happen. It’ll get pulled.”
