She was born this way! JoJo Siwa almost had a very different coming out story, which could have involved Lady Gaga.
The songstress, 18, revealed to J-14 exclusively that before publicly coming out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, she had crafted a “plan” to tell Gaga: “I’m gay.” While promoting her show Siwas Dance Pop Revolution with mom Jessalynn Siwa, the internet personality reflected on her Dancing With the Stars journey, which ended with a “magical” freestyle to Gaga’s song “Born This Way” alongside partner Jenna Johnson.
“I remember standing there about 30 seconds left [before the performance] and I started sobbing and I was like, ‘Oh, we gotta pull it together fast. We’d have to pull it together really fast. We’d have to really pull it together fast.’ And the second that I heard, ‘It doesn’t matter if you love him.’ I was immediately pulled together,” JoJo recalled. “Then I started crying once we were over and Jenna said, ‘No tears, no tears. It’s not over yet. We’re still celebrating. No tears. It’s not over yet.'”
The pair went on to finish season 30 in second place. While Gaga has yet to publicly react to JoJo’s performance, the J Team star said she keeps “checking my Twitter.”
In January, JoJo publicly came out via social media while wearing a shirt that read: “Best. Gay. Cousin. Ever.” This came days after she uploaded a TikTok video of her singing along to “Born This Way,” a song JoJo told J-14 means “everything” to her.
“I love that song. I feel like in my head, something clicked when I learned that those words said, ‘No matter gay, straight or Bi. Lesbian, transgender life. I’m on the right track baby. I was born survive.’ Something clicked that told me wait, it’s OK,” the songstress shared. “I always knew that song was about being born this way. But something about sexuality clicked for me that I was like, ‘Oh, it’s not, it’s not that bad. Lady Gaga believes in it. I do too.”
JoJo went on to tell a story that she’s “never shared with anybody.”
“I always told myself, like, if I ran into Gaga at Center Stage. Or if I ran into Gaga at her concert and I saw her and I got to go backstage. I was always — my whole life, I had a plan. I was going to tell her, ‘I’ve never told anybody this, but I’m gay. And I feel like the one person that I just want to know that I’m gay is you.’ I mean, I never got the chance to do that, I came out to the world first, but she was my original, like, that’s the one person I’m going to tell.”
She continued, “I’m not a private person, but it was a very private thing for me.”
New episodes of Siwas Dance Pop Revolution premiere weekly via Peacock.
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