BURSTAt 22, the singer and reality TV star has lived most of her life in the limelight. What’s it like to be managed by your mother, run a billion-dollar business in your teens and be dismissed as ‘the lesbian’ by a Hollywood legend?
A week before JoJo Siwa entered the Celebrity Big Brother house, she had a presentiment about it. “Something feels different,” she told her mother (and manager) Jessalynn. “I don’t think I’m gonna win, but I think I’m gonna change.” Siwa’s initial hunch was that the transformation would be in her career, she says. “Little did I know it was going to change my personal life so much. By a landslide, it is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Siwa may be only 22, but it’s still quite the statement. As the breakout talent of the American reality TV series Dance Moms, she was arguably the biggest child star of the 2010s, at 11 years old instantly memorable for her larger-than-life personality and equally outsized hair bow. By the time she turned 15, in 2018, Siwa was a cross-platform tween sensation, with 5 million YouTube subscribers (now 12 million), a Nickelodeon deal, a burgeoning pop career and a staggeringly successful hair accessory business.
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