JoJo Siwa is navigating the highs and lows of fame.
“This definitely is different,” the Dance Moms alum exclusively Keltie Knight about her level of stardom these days on the July 15 episode of E! News. “It’s interesting—OK, I guess we’ll get really right into it: I got swatted two nights ago. I haven’t told anybody about this yet. But basically, I showed up to my house, there was four police cars outside.”
And after the incident, JoJo—who previously shared her home was swatted in 2021—is thinking more about her safety.
“The police asked me, he was like, ‘Why do you not have security with you in this moment?’” she continued. “And I was like, ‘Cause I haven’t needed it yet.’ But now, I do really need it every day with me. So, it definitely has changed in the last month, two months, three months, I guess, since ‘Karma’ came out. It’s been fun to say the least.”
“Karma,” which dropped in April, is one of the songs from JoJo's new EP Guilty Pleasure. The record also includes her recently released single by the same name. As for the singer’s inspiration behind the titular track?
“I think for a very long time, I’ve been in the industry since I was 9, I really have been a lot of people’s guilty pleasures for different reasons,” JoJo explained. “Especially now with ‘Karma,’—the dance, the makeup, everyone [saying], 'You’re a weirdo. You’re a freak.'"
But as the 21-year-old sees it, the fact that they’re commenting at all says something.
“It doesn’t matter what you’re commenting, you’re still commenting,” she added. “That’s what’s funny is people will essentially use their time—I’m not gonna say waste their time—but there's people that are using their time to comment, 'You're not my guilty pleasure.' Then why are you on my page, and why are you commenting? Click not interested and keep it pushing, kid.”
However, she’s too busy to stress over the internet’s opinions. In addition to debuting new music, the Nickelodeon star is working on a docuseries. And she hopes it helps fans get to know her better.
“I think right now there is this massive feeling from the world that we know exactly who JoJo Siwa is,” JoJo noted. “No, you don’t. You know exactly what I want to show you. You know my career, essentially. But you don’t know how I’m getting there. You don’t know what it’s taking for me to get there. You don’t see my makeup looks—me at 7 a.m. making them.”
“There’s so much that goes into this” she continued. “And I think a lot of people look at my career and look at my marketing strategies as if I’m psycho and have people controlling me as if I’m a puppet. But when you learn and find out that it’s actually me doing all of it, it flips and you’re like, ‘Wait what?’ So I think [it's] to give people that insight of you think you know me, but you don’t.”
To see how JoJo has evolved over the years, keep reading.