JoJo Siwa’s viral outfit at the iHeartRadio Music Awards wasn’t an attempt to resurrect Kiss — it was her way of preparing fans for the arrival of her new music video.
Siwa’s “Karma” dropped on Friday, April 5, marking the 20-year-old’s first single featuring lyrical content not suitable for children. At the start of the video, the Nickelodeon alum lounges on a tropical island while dressed in her bejeweled, rock-inspired outfit. Suddenly, a similarly bedazzled femme in a red outfit comes in and straddles Siwa’s lap.
The scene transitions to a white party on a yacht, where Siwa is ensnared in a sapphic situationship. After diving off the boat, Siwa washes up on shore in her black-and-silver getup as she delivers the song’s final chorus.
“Oh, karma’s a bitch / I should have known better,” she sings. “If I had a wish I would have never effed around / When I saw the pics of you and her I felt the knife twist / Karma’s a bitch and she’s with you right now.”
The song details Siwa’s dealing with the consequences of doing “some bad things,” i.e. cheating on her significant other. Siwa sings about how she “didn’t think twice what it would do to you,” but it was “a matter of time before I blew it.” Eventually, she sees her girlfriend hook up with her mistress, and “the universe is giving me what I deserve.”
According to Rolling Stone, Siwa addressed the adult direction of her new song and video in a listening party ahead of the track’s arrival. “I’ve grown up for 11 years now in front of the world, and I have always been about making art. That’s what I love to do. I’ve always been genuinely myself, and I’ve always created stuff that felt true to me,” she said.
“As I got older, I really wanted to create stuff that was gonna make the world say, ‘What the f–k?’ And the fun thing is with ‘Karma,’ I wanted this first breakout adult moment to do that,” she added. “I wanted this first adult breakout moment to make people’s heads turn.”
Siwa debuted the silvery-black look at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on Monday, April 1, walking the red carpet with eyes covered in black makeup and an outfit looking more “Detroit Rock City” than Dance Moms. With many comparing the outfit to something Kiss would have worn during their heyday, the band’s Gene Simmons reflected on the look.
“JoJo is cool. Anybody who doesn’t get it is just jealous, period,” Simmons, 74, said of her outfit. “JoJo is extraordinary and she looks cool. She looks like me, but that’s another story.”
