JoJo Siwa's Coming Out Announcement

Overview

JoJo Siwa's Coming Out Announcement refers to a social media post by American dancer and recording artist Jojo Siwa confirming that she is a lesbian. Following the post, fans expressed excitement and support for Siwa. However, Siwa claims that paparazzi swatted her residence in hopes of forcing Siwa to leave her home for press photographs.

Background

On January 22nd, 2021, JoJo Siwa tweeted ^[1] a photograph of herself wearing a shirt that reads, "Best. Gay. Cousin. Ever." She captioned the post, "My cousin got me a new shirt." This post acted as Siwa's coming out as a lesbian, receiving more than 1.2 million likes and 600,000 retweets in less than three days (shown below).

Developments

Online Reaction

Many reacted to Siwa's announcement positively, offering support to the performer. That day, Redditors Girlypop60 and random_gurl123 posted about the tweet on /r/actuallesbians^[2] and /r/lgtb,^[3] respectively, earning more than 4,000 points in each subreddit.

On Twitter, fans and Twitter users praised Siwa and the impact her public announcement would have. Twitter user @mattxiv tweeted,^[4] "ok but the impact of jojo siwa coming out to millions of very very young kids and their parents ?? the normalization this has …. a queen." The tweet received more than 191,000 likes and 15,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, left).

Twitter^[5] user @sapphicbisexual tweeted, "if you don't think jojo siwa coming out as gay is a big deal; just remember that there are lgbt kids that watch her videos that may have felt so alone with their identity and seeing the person they look up to coming out makes them feel safer and more comfortable with themselves." The tweet received more than 74,000 likes and 8,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, center).

Additionally, Twitter^[6] user @youtubersmw tweeted, "wait now i’m thinking about how kids are gonna see jojo siwa being unapologetically herself and coming out and maybe they will feel comfortable coming out and won’t be ashamed of themselves….now i’m crying /pos." The tweet received more than 15,000 likes and 1,400 retweets in less than one week (shown below, right).

On January 24th, Abby Lee Miller, the founder of the Abby Lee Dance Company, which is featured of reality series Dance Moms and is where Siwa received her training, posted support on Instagram. ^[7] She wrote, "I always knew the world would be a more colorful, positive, sparkly place with a kind, loving, dazzling triple threat like you in it – a shining example for the kids out there to live their BEST lives each and every day. *You put your heart on the platter! (If you know you know) Love you kiddo!!!Keep making me proud." The post received more than 381,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below).

That day, Siwa published a video on Instagram, expressing her gratitude for the support from her fans and her own joy at coming out. The post received more than 4.5 million views and 715,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Swatting

On January 24th, 2021, after posting her video on Instagram, Siwa confirmed that she had been the victim of a swatting, in which police responded to a false report of illegal activity at her residence. On the Instagram account of her videographer Nate Javier, she described the incident as "really scary." She continued to explain that she believes that paparazzi photographers were behind the report. She said, "Basically what happened is we were at our house and there were a bunch of police to get out of the house […] we went outside hands up because we obviously have to follow the rules and do what you're supposed to do […] And then the police were saying that somebody had called and made a claim and then all of a sudden paparazzi came from around the corner."

"I recently 'came out to the internet' is officially the term, the media is obviously very excited which I love and I love the support however, you know, you could have just hung outside my house and I would have eventually come outside."

On January 23rd, YouTube account TRQFFIC published a video of Siwa and other residents outside their home with police. The post received more than 9,600 views in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Media Coverage

Several media outlet covered the announcement, including BuzzFeed, ^[8] HuffPost,^[9] Out,^[10] CNN^[11] and more.

Search Interest

External References