JoJo Siwa is standing by Colleen Ballinger through grooming allegations.
While appearing on the “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast on Wednesday, September 13, Howie Mandel kicked off the conversation by asking Siwa if she’s still friends with Ballinger.
“Yeah,” she replied. “I’ve known Colleen since I was 12. She’s always been nothing but kind to me … The internet can take a lie and run so far with it that it’s to the point where you just can’t do anything about it.”
Siwa added that she knows Ballinger “very, very well.”
“I think the work that Colleen has done for the internet is incredible,” Siwa continued. “Miranda Sings, her character, is a comedian, and I think that it’s very hard to be a character where people are also looking at you as you’re a real human behind that character. Being a comedian is very hard because you were able to do things years ago that were OK, and now that we’ve grown and matured we’ve realized they’re not OK.”
Siwa defended her friend, “The problem is the internet was able to capitalize off her cancellation. And it’s not OK and a lot of it is based off of lies.”
Ballinger was accused of grooming her young fans in June when a YouTuber KodeeRants posted alleged screenshots between her and a group of fans. Ballinger allegedly asked the fans what their “favorite position” was, what their thoughts were when they “first got their periods” and if one was “a virgin.”
At the time, Ballinger made a YouTube video responding to the claims in a “Toxic Gossip Train” song. In the social media clip, she explained that “some people are saying things about me that just aren’t true.” She then began strumming the ukulele and singing that she wanted to “be besties with everybody” but “didn’t understand that maybe there should be some boundaries there.”
Ballinger added that she will not be “admitting to lies and rumors that you made up for clout.”
She also shared that she has already taken “accountability” for her actions in 2020, when content creator Adam McIntyre claimed she had “an inappropriate personal friendship with him between the ages of 13 and 16,” and even sent him lingerie “as a joke.”
After his accusations, she said via social media, “I see how completely stupid of me, I should have never sent [the lingerie]. “I don’t know what part of my brain was missing at the time that I thought, ‘Oh this is a normal, silly thing to do.’”
Since June, Ballinger has stayed out of the spotlight and has not posted anything on her social media accounts.
