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YouTube sensation JoJo Siwa is “technically pansexual”, the teen superstar has told the world, after coming out in January as a member of the LGBTQ community.
Back then, JoJo (17) said she wasn’t ready to label her sexuality, saying, “I have thought about this, and the reason why I’m not ready to say this answer is because I don’t really know this answer.
“I always believed that my person was just going to be my person,” she continued. “And if that person happened to be a boy, great, and if that person happened to be a girl, great!”
Now, appearing on the cover of People magazine, JoJo explained that she would describe herself as "technically" pansexual.
Pansexuality is considered a “sexual, romantic or emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others”.
"I still don't know what I am," the teen said of labels. "It's like, I want to figure it out. And I have this joke. [My girlfriend's] name is Kylie. And so I say that I'm Ky-sexual. But like, I don't know, bisexual, pansexual, queer, lesbian, gay, straight. I always just say gay because it just kind of covers it or queer because I think the keyword is cool."
She continued, "Technically I would say that I am pansexual because that's how I have always been my whole life. [It's] just like, my human is my human."
In the candid interview, JoJo says that she’s known about her sexuality since she “was little”, hinting that her early career success, including her 2013 start on Dance Moms, may not have happened if she’d come out earlier.
JoJo’s girlfriend, Florida native Kylie Prew (18), was part of the reason she JoJo felt comfortable coming out in the first place.
In a previous appearance on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, JoJo told the talk-show host that Kylie was not only "super encouraging" about her decision but also "the most amazing, wonderful, perfect, most beautiful girlfriend in the whole world".
In the recent interview the Hold the Drama singer dishes that their relationship began as a friendship after the pair met on a cruise ship and turned romantic a year later, in late 2020.
“I told her my spiel that I tell everyone when they ask me my life story,” JoJo recalls of their initial meeting. “She goes, ‘I could have googled that. You just told me about your career; I want to know about you’. I was like, ‘No one’s ever asked me that before’.”
Above all, JoJo says she is happy now in a way she never has been before.
Not only did the YouTube sensation’s 12,2 million YouTube subscribers shower her with praise, but even stars such as Ellen DeGeneres, Lil Nas X and Sir Ian McKellen commended her for coming out.
"I've never gotten this much support from the world,” she says. “I think this is the first time that I've felt so personally happy. Performing has always made me super-happy, but for the first time, personally, I am like, 'Whoa, happiness'. I am so proud to be me."
But despite all the support and positive sentiment, JoJo also googled herself and stumbled across the inevitable raft of negative comments.
“I never should have done that. I was thinking that all the comments were going to be nice and supportive, and they weren’t.
“A lot of them were, ‘I’m never buying your merch again. My daughter’s never watching you again’. I couldn’t sleep for three days.”
When it comes to her love life, JoJo is grateful that Kylie doesn't worry about what online trolls have to say.
"She never cares what the internet said about us," she told People. "It's nice to have somebody in my life like that."
Sources: people.com, etonline.com, buzzfeed.com, j-4.com, cosmopolitan.com
