JoJo Siwa‘s mom has entered the chat. Jessalynn Siwa came to her daughter’s defense amid the singer’s public feud with Candace Cameron Bure.
The former dance teacher, 47, took to Instagram on Monday, August 1, to share a clip from a previous episode of her “Success With Jess” podcast in which she opened up about JoJo’s run-in with Bure, 46.
“I talked about this on my podcast a while back. The recent story told wasn’t quite right so here is the real version,” Jessalynn captioned the post. “At the end of the day this story, it’s not about a simple photo it’s about how you treat people. Real, genuine kindness always goes a long way. It’s super easy to quote a Bible verse when everyone is looking at you but morals are what you have when no one is looking. 🌈.”
In the video, the Dance Moms alum broke down the first time her daughter, now 19, crossed paths with the former Hallmark actress. “First of all, I have been obsessed with her since the premiere episode of Full House. And second of all, JoJo was obsessed with her,” Jessalynn said. “So it’s still cool, we still like her. It was just a bad moment.”
The entrepreneur recalled attending a premiere for Fuller House with JoJo in Los Angeles. “It was awesome and quaint. There’s not a lot of people there. All of the people from the show are there [and] they show you two episodes. It was so fun,” she shared. “After that we were all upstairs on the balcony. Uncle Jesse [John Stamos] was there, Joey [Dave Coulier] and Stephanie [Jodie Sweetin] and everyone was taking pictures. It was amazing.”
After the screening, Jessalynn noted that the party was moved to a smaller venue. “It was kind of crowded because it wasn’t a huge theater where they had a lot of people,” she continued. “Then JoJo ran into DJ and was like, ‘Oh, my God, I love you so much. Can we please take a selfie?’ And she was like, ‘Not now. Maybe later.’ Word for word — ‘Not now, maybe later.’”
The So You Think You Can Dance judge would later appear as a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show alongside Bure in 2019.
“I go, ‘If she even asks you for a picture, please say: not now, maybe later,'” Jessalynn recalled joking to her daughter. “[Candace] just couldn’t be bothered. … I do not know what was going on, but it is funny when you don’t know and somebody treats you like that? And it is hard to be a celebrity, I will give that to you. But that was so long ago — I can’t even tell you — and I still remember it.”
The former dance studio owner’s comments resurfaced shortly after JoJo raised eyebrows when she chose Bure as the “rudest” celebrity she ever met while participating in a TikTok challenge late last month.
The California native, for her part, offered a glimpse at her state of mind with a Bible quote before addressing the drama more directly. “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock,” she wrote via her Instagram Story on July 25, referring to a passage from Isaiah 26:4.
Bure later revealed in a lengthy Instagram video that she reached out to JoJo to discuss the incident. “She didn’t want to tell me [how I was rude to her],” the actress detailed on July 26. “She said, ‘You know, I met you at the Fuller House premiere and I was 11 years old.’”
The Full House alum said she felt “crummy” about the way her response upset the Nebraska native. “We are both positive, encouraging people, and I told JoJo how much I’ve always appreciated her because she has been a good role model because of her positivity throughout her whole life and career,” Bure added. “That’s the tea.”
The Siwas Dance Pop Revolution star, however, claimed Bure didn’t “share all the details of the meeting” they had with one another. “When you’re little and somebody says something to you, and you just never forget it as long as you live — I think we’ve all had that moment — and I feel like this was that moment for me,” JoJo told Page Six on Thursday, July 28.
Amid the back and forth, Candace’s daughter, Natasha Bure, also took to social media to defend her mother.
“Respectfully, someone saying ‘no’ to taking a photo with you is not a ‘rough experience,’” Natasha, 23, wrote via Instagram Story before deleting the post. “This generation is so sensitive and has no backbone.”
