The always energetic and bright JoJo Siwa practically glowed on last night’s The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon as she explained her decision to come out as part of the LBGTQIA community. The 17-year-old, who has almost 32 million TikTok followers and is a huge role model to her young fans, shared that while all her family and friends knew she had a girlfriend, it was just a piece of herself she hadn’t yet shown to the public.
“I always believed that my person was just going to be my person,” she told Fallon in the interview. “And if that person happened to be a boy, great, and if that person happened to be a girl, great!”
Siwa chronicled the series of bread crumbs she had posted on social media that teased her coming out. Speculation began after she appeared in a dance video with members of the Pride House.
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“We’re doing this TikTok, and I’m like, ‘I think this is going to out me,'” Siwa told Fallon. “And I was like, I don’t really mind, because it is true. I do have the most amazing, wonderful, perfect, most beautiful girlfriend in the whole world.”
Siwa then upped the game when she posted a video of her dancing to Lady Gaga’s pride anthem “Born This Way” and then basically confirmed the rumors when she shared a photo of her wearing a shirt that said, “Best gay cousin ever.”
“My cousin had gotten me that shirt — I took that picture like a week before I posted it — and I put it on my ‘Close Friends’ Instagram story,” she said. “I was on FaceTime with [my girlfriend], and we were just talking about all the love that came in, and we were both like, technically I still haven’t confirmed it. I was like, I kind of just want to post this picture on my real story. She was super encouraging.”
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Siwa later confirmed, in her own words, that she was coming out through a video posted to Instagram. While she doesn’t yet feel comfortable placing a specific label on her sexuality, coming out has made her the “happiest she’s ever been,” she said.
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She told Fallon that she didn’t realize how risky the decision had been until two days later.
“Technically, that was a really big risk that I took, posting that,” Siwa said. “But if I lost everything that I’ve created because of being myself, and because of loving who I want to love, I don’t want it. … I’m just so happy, because now I get to share what makes me the happiest with the world. And it makes my heart so happy.”
She continued: “Right now, I’m super-duper happy and I want to share everything with the world, but I also want to keep things in my life private until they are ready to be public. Right now what matters is that you guys know that no matter who you love, that it’s OK.”
Siwa said she knows that coming out can be “a very scary thing,” but she had words of wisdom for those considering it. “Of course not everybody in the world is going to accept it right now, but there are so many people that are going to accept it right now,” she said. “And like I say, even if there’s a million people that don’t accept it, there’s a hundred million that do.”
What a great lesson for her young fans! Siwa was recently named one of Time’s Most Influential People, and we agree. We applaud her using her influence for such a positive purpose, letting kids know that they can love whomever they want, and it’s totally cool. We hope her example will help parents and kids discuss LGBTQIA issues openly and honestly, and help create a happy world for everyone in the rainbow.
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