JoJo Siwa Says It 'Feels Amazing' To Be Labeled A 'Gay Icon'
JoJo Siwa embraces her new label as a “gay icon”
JoJo Siwa may only be 18 years old, but her history-making turn on Dancing With The Stars as the first star to dance in a same-sex pairing and her shame-free and positively exuberant approach to coming out makes her the perfect person to hold the mantle of “gay icon,” which Siwa says she’s thrilled to carry.
In an appearance on The Ellen Show on November 4, 2021, Ellen DeGeneres asked Siwa how it feels to be called, a “gay icon.”
“It’s wild to me,” Siwa shared. “I think because I look at people who are called gay icons — like you, Lady Gaga, Freddie Mercury, my favorite people, and to be in that category at 18 is just insane. And just because of who I am, it feels amazing.”
Siwa, who is probably best known for her ponytail and for having legions of very young (when I say young, I mean, like pre-schoolers) fans, joked that now that she’s out, her upcoming concert is going to be “Kidz Bop meets Pride Fest.”
“One thing that actually just happened a few days ago is, I was explaining to my dancers that are going to be coming on tour with me, I was explaining to them what my concert was like,” Siwa told DeGeneres. “I was like, ‘Think of it as like four-year-olds and gay 19-year-olds. It’s like Kidz Bop meets Pride Fest.’”
But Siwa isn’t just an “icon” because she wears colorful jackets (the jacket she wore on Ellen was amazing, though), Siwa tells DeGeneres that it was actually her idea to dance with a female partner on DWTS.
“It’s never been done before, there’s never been a same-sex couple on the show, and immediately when I got the email to do it, I was like, ‘Oh, awesome…Oh, I’m going to have to dance with a dude, that’s gonna be weird.’ But I was down. But after talking for a minute, there was an option to dance with a female, and immediately without thinking twice, I was like, this is what’s right for me.”
“So doing this, being partnered with another female on the show, it just shows all the little kids watching, ‘Okay, cool, boy-girl, wait, a girl-girl. That’s cool, too. It just makes it more normal…” she added.
Besides leading the world into a more progressive future, her dances on DWTS are also, just… dope? Have you seen Pennywise the clown dance? I mean…
“I am so happy with the outcome of me coming out,” Siwa continued. “The world has taken it so positively, and it’s impacted so many young kids in such a way that hearing adults say, ‘I wish I had someone like you when I was little,’ that makes me know the kids that are little have someone like me, too.”
We, quite literally, love to see it.
