YouTube star and singer JoJo Siwa has come out as gay, after initial speculation was caused by one of her social media posts this week.
The 17-year-old old had earlier shared a TikTok video of herself dancing to Lady Gaga’s empowering hit song “Born This Way”, during which she mimed the lyrics: “No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian transgender life, I’m on the right track baby I was born to survive.”
In the video, Siwa wore one of her branded jumpers with different coloured hearts on the front, and one of her signature hair bows – this one covered in rainbows.
Despite their excitement at the prospect of Siwa coming out, fans cautioned each other not to assume her sexuality based on one video.
Siwa has now confirmed that she identifies as gay with a photo that shows her wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Best. Gay. Cousin. Ever.”
She captioned the post: “My cousin got me a new T-shirt.”
At the time of writing, the post had received more than 800,000 likes in just 11 hours.
Fans sent Siwa messages of encouragement and support, with one writing: “Love you SO much JoKo! Live your truth fearlessly.”
“Old Town Road” star Lil Nas X, who came out as gay in 2019, was among those to express support for Siwa, tweeting: “if u spell “swag” backwards, it’s “gay”. coincidence??”
Siwa rose to fame on the reality show Dance Moms before going on to establish a career as a YouTube star, singer and children’s entertainer.
A number of her music videos have more than 100 million views, while her hit song “BOOMERANG”, released in 2016 when Siwa was just 13 years old, is closer to a billion.
Last year, she was included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
