Clarifying the situation. JoJo Siwa is clearing the air after fans questioned her comments on sexuality.
Late last month, Siwa, 19, faced backlash after she detailed her coming out journey and her relationship with the word lesbian.
“It’s not about being comfortable with being the face of the LGBTQ young demographic, young age, youngling. It’s about being honored with that. It’s something that I’ve been appointed by, not myself, by just the world calling me a gay icon, calling me this generation’s icon. That is an honor that I do not take lightly,” the Dance Moms alum told Yahoo Life on July 21, before joking, “I don’t like the word [lesbian] itself. It’s just like a lot. But I mean, at the end of the day, that’s what I am. … It’s like the word moist. It’s just like … ugh!”
The performer also noted that “everything was perfect” when she decided to discuss her identity for the first time. “If the world would’ve worked out for me to come out sooner, then I totally would’ve, but I never felt a need to. I never even really, I guess, realized that I was gay until I realized I was gay,” she added. “If I could go back in time and change anything, I don’t think I would.”
Siwa’s fans were quick to question her aversion to the lesbian label. The Nebraska native, for her part, took to social media to address comments that slammed her for insulting her followers.
“OK, I’ve been going through my comments, and I just want to make something super clear, I never said that lesbian was a dirty word, and I never ever would say that it’s a dirty word because it is not,” the So You Think You Can Dance judge explained during a TikTok video on Saturday, July 30. “It is not a bad word. It is not a slur, and it especially is not a word that I am ashamed of saying or ashamed of identifying as by any means.”
According to the singer, her issues were limited to the word itself and not the meaning behind it. “I don’t hate the word lesbian. I just, whenever somebody talks to me about my sexuality, I just say that that I’m gay,” she revealed. “It’s not a word that flows off the tongue for me if that makes sense.”
Siwa, who is currently dating Kylie Prew, came out in January 2021. During her initial interview in July, the Nickelodeon star also discussed how criticism was “never-ending” for her. “One thing I’ve learned is that no matter what, the criticism isn’t gonna go away, so just keep walking forward,” she shared at the time.
