JoJo Siwa is responding to alleged bullying from the LGBTQ+ community after she began dating reality TV star Chris Hughes.
Prior to Siwa starring in the recent season of Celebrity Big Brother U.K., the child star and current pop artist had identified as a lesbian. According to them, on the show, Siwa went through an arc of personal discovery, culminating in a statement made to her fellow Big Brother housemate Danny Beard, “Fuck the L, I’m going to the Q.” This marked her changing her identity from lesbian to queer.
Siwa has been open about the criticism she’s faced since changing labels—even claiming that she felt pressured to describe herself as a lesbian. In an interview on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast, Siwa discusses the joy in her current relationship, “I had somebody that was designed for me at (16) and that happened to be a girl, and I have somebody that’s designed for me now at 22 and, I really really believe, for the rest of my life.”
She continues to describe the conflict she faces, “It’s hard because it feels like my own family has turned a little bit. We are the LGBTQIA+ community, not the LG community. It’s a beautiful rainbow, and the number-one saying of the queer community is ‘love is love.’ And that goes both ways.” Additionally, Siwa claims that she’s been bullied by members of the LGBTQ+ community, recalling someone who stood outside her recording studio flipping her off for two minutes straight. She feels she has noticed folks see her on the street and make fun of her: “I see them see me, and I see them laugh; I see them point, I see them roll their eyes.”
Many of this criticism arises from Siwa calling out “fuck the L.” Combined with sapphic pop-star Fletcher similarly coming out as liking men around the same time, some lesbians may have seen this as an attack on their letter of the alphabet rather than queer exploration.
Siwa ends the interview by telling her haters to “listen to ‘Man in the Mirror'” by Michael Jackson.
Photo courtesy of Instagram
