Dance Moms alum JoJo Siwa parlayed her reality TV fame into a full-blown entertainment career.
But behind those big, sparkly bows, this energetic teen star has endured bullying, pranks gone
wrong, and accusations of fakery.
This is the untold truth of JoJo Siwa.
"Let's get into it."
There's a boatload of fans out there who want to know why JoJo won't do something new and
kicky with her hair.
But as she told J-14 in 2018,
“I feel more confident with my hair up.
I wear my hair up all the time because I don’t like it down I just really hate having it
on my neck, so that’s why I always pull it into a ponytail.”
"I am going to tell you why I literally have to wear this every day.
Because I like it."
If this teenage spectacular can be believed, JoJo doesn't even let down her hair at home.
She claims,
"I wear bows and my hair up, no matter if I'm performing or not…
I just don't feel right if my hair's not up with a bow…
I don't feel like me."
Curiously, in a 2018 vlog, titled "WEARING MY HAIR DOWN!!!", Siwa let her mom Jessalynn
do her hair how she wanted to.
"It actually does look really pretty."
It's safe to say JoJo is a certifiable handful.
In July 2017, her manic persona even inspired a host of This Morning to ask,
"Where do you get all that from?
Do you drink a lot of sugary drinks?"
"No!"
While some might think Siwa's dynamic personality is totally fake, J-14 magazine insists it's
quote, "so not an act."
"A lotta people think like 'JoJo is fake', or 'JoJo is a character', but like it's not."
Jace Norman, who co-starred with Siwa in Nickelodeon's Blurt confirmed the same, telling People,
"She's awesome, she's like this huge aura of energy.
The persona that she has online is not fake at all.
Like that's actually her."
In 2018, Siwa revealed to Access Online that she'd been attacked by a Twitter troll that
went after her dog, too.
"People bullied my dog."
She claims the commenter negatively judged her (and her dog's) looks.
The low blow then inspired Siwa to tweet:
"I've been getting a lot of hate recently and I'm okay, I know how to deal with it…
BUT SOMEONE JUST COMMENTED THAT MY DOG IS UGLY I'M ABOUT TO GO OFF."
"Do not.
Do not come for BowBow.
Mama bear comes out.
Do not hate on my dog."
These haters would be much better off catching up with The JoJo & BowBow ShowShow on Nickelodeon.
"See?
Bows do make everything better."
If you were a former Dance Moms sensation and subsequent YouTube star, you might worry
about surrounding yourself with fair-weather friends.
In an interview with J-14, Siwa said,
"I have to be careful about who my friends are!
I don't want fake friends!"
Some of this anxiety must stem from the fact that Siwa is confronted by online bullies
left and right.
She told This Morning,
"They can just comment, 'you're fat,' 'you're ugly,' 'you're weird,' 'you're a brat,' 'I
hate you', 'you're annoying', and it's just terrible."
But she says she doesn't let all that negativity get her down.
"You only live once, enjoy your life, be positive, be happy, and don't let the haters get their
way."
In 2017, JoJo angered plenty of fans with a misguided YouTube prank.
According to Inquisitr, in a since-deleted vlog she told a story about her dad getting
hit by a bus, claiming:
"A bus just came flying at us."
She assured fans that her father was going to make it, but was recovering at the hospital.
Then suddenly, Siwa confessed,
"We had no clickbait for the blog, we wanted the views, so we made up a story."
But while her uninjured dad seemed to be in on it, too, Inquisitr reported that fans weren't
amused.
In a follow-up post, Siwa offered:
"I'm very sorry for yesterday's video.
I know it was a lot of clickbait."
But she continued,
"Wouldn't be a YouTube video if there wasn't clickbait, so it's fine!"
JoJo claims to have more than 1,000 bows in her collection, and she reportedly goes to
sleep each night with one perched in her hair.
Her signature accessories are even dubbed "JoJo bows", and there's no shortage of girls
eager to cop her look.
"She inspires a lot of us."
Claire Low, editor of Australian "tween mag," Total Girl, told the Sydney Morning Herald,
"JoJo bows are an insane phenomenon.
She's taken something simple and fairly widespread… and managed to turn this into an empire."
"Whoa, there's now a bow club."
JoJo bows are so popular, they've even been banned in several schools throughout the U.K.,
a trend that's annoyed plenty of parents, according to The Telegraph.
One parent tweeted:
"Actively encouraging my 7 year old daughter to protest about the JoJo bow ban at school."
And another mom told the Manchester Evening News,
"I really can't see any problem with the JoJo bows, they make out like it's a gun or something
really bad, but come on, they're only hair clips."
Siwa, who has called her bows "a symbol of power, confidence, believing-ness", calls
the ban "a very bad thing," according to the BBC.
But she's not about to give up on her signature look.
"Did you guys really think that I would get rid of my hair bow, like did you actually,
come on, look at me."