Teen star JoJo Siwa comes out as member of LGBTQI community

Teen megastar JoJo Siwa has squashed days of speculation about her sexuality confirming to her fans she is a member of the LGBTQI community.

The 17-year-old pop artist posted a 15-minute Instagram Live video captioned, “Happy girl! So so happy”, along with a rainbow emoji, to share a message with her followers.

In the footage, the former Dance Moms star seemed relieved to share her news explaining, “Now that the world gets to see this side of my life, it makes me really, really happy. I’ve been happy in this land for a minute now.”

However, Siwa, who is said to be worth a cool $18 million, is choosing to not label her sexuality.

“Someone asked ‘What label are you?’ I have thought about this and the reason why I am not ready to say this answer is because I don’t really know... I think humans are awesome, I think humans are really incredible people... and I want to share everything with the world, but I also want to keep things in my life private until they’re ready to be public,” she said.

The news follows days of rumours online that Siwa had come out, after she posted a TikTok video of herself lip-syncing to Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’, specifically the lyrics “No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I’m on the right track baby I was born to survive”.

She also followed that with an Instagram photo of herself wearing a shirt that read, “BEST. GAY. COUSIN. EVER.”

In the new video, Siwa referred to the past 48 hours “of the world knowing” as the best she’s experienced and addressed live comments from fans.

“This is actually a really good question: How long have you been part of the community, how long have you been whatever you are?’” to which Siwa answered, “I don’t know.”

“I think my whole life, because my whole life...I liked people but I’d never had fallen in love before, but I always believed that my person was just going to be my person,” she said. “And if that person happened to be a boy, great, and if that person happened to be a girl, great.”

She clarified that her sexual orientation was irrelevant to her November breakup to musician Mark Bontempo, whom she began dating in August.

“People as teenagers break up, you have a boyfriend or you have a girlfriend when you're 6 years old and you break up with them, you're not with them for forever,” she said in the video. “I was a teenager, I still am a teenager but I think I'm pretty happy now. I'm pretty good now.”

However, the news did not surprise Siwa’s parents — according to the singer, her mother has known Siwa’s truth for two years now — and there is no shortage of family support.

“Somebody said, ‘Don’t worry, we knew you liked girls.’ Thank you? I think thank you!” she said adding, “I'm the happiest that I've ever been.”

Reporting by Elise Solé.

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