A few days before JoJo Siwa entered the Celebrity Big Brother house last April, she had an inkling that the show was going to change her life. An American dancer and singer, and arguably the most successful child star of recent years with an estimated net worth of around £15million, she left her management aghast at the idea that she might enter the British Big Brother house.
‘They said, “We don’t think you should do this and we’re your team so you should listen to us,”’ JoJo recalls. ‘And I said, “I’m your client, you should listen to me. I’m doing it.”’ JoJo, it’s worth mentioning, was just 21 at the time.
Not only was it a gutsy move by the youngster but also, as it turns out, a prescient one. She admits she was feeling ‘lost’ at the time. ‘I realised I wasn’t being who I wanted to be,’ she says now. ‘But I didn’t know what the answer was.’
As she told her mother Jessalynn, who has been very involved in her career: ‘I thought it was going to change my life. I thought I’d maybe find myself and have some self-realisation. I never thought I would find love.’
In fact she provided the show with a twist that even Big Brother with its all-seeing eye could never have envisaged. Having come out as a lesbian aged 17, JoJo was in a relationship with non-binary actor Kath Ebbs at the time. But in the house she formed a tight friendship with ex-Love Islander Chris Hughes (or ‘sweet Christopher’ as she calls him), only for their friendship to blossom into romance in the outside world.
They started dating last May, spent Christmas with both of their families and have even broached the subject of marriage and kids. ‘I had never pictured myself with a man and I never thought I could fall for a man,’ she says, ‘so I was almost fascinated that I could.’
As we chat at her dance studio in Burbank, California, ahead of her appearance in this year’s edition of Channel 4’s The Great Celebrity Bake Off For Stand Up To Cancer, JoJo is just as warm and forthright as she appeared to be on Big Brother, where she eventually came third.
Born in the Midwestern city of Omaha, Nebraska, JoJo was thrust into the spotlight at the age of ten when she appeared on the US reality show Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition. The series followed young performers as they wilted under the terrifying tutelage of dance instructor Abby Lee Miller, who berated her young charges for being ‘obnoxious’ and ‘rude’.
JoJo Siwa, 22, is an American dancer and singer with an estimated net worth of around £15million
JoJo with former Love Island star Chris Hughes, who she began dating after the pair appeared on Celebrity Big Brother last year
JoJo’s resilience and personality made her a standout of the series and her career took off. By the age of 13 she’d released the song Boomerang, the video for which has had more than a billion views online, in addition to launching a line of the hair bows that were her signature look on the show in partnership with accessories outlet Claire’s.
From 2015 to 2016 she appeared on the reality show Dance Moms with her mother, before signing a deal with TV channel Nickelodeon that launched her into the tween stratosphere, spawning films, TV shows and music. At 16 she did a world tour and became the youngest person ever to sell out London’s O2 Arena.
By then she had millions of YouTube subscribers (her channel currently has more than 12million) and had become the face of a billion-dollar business that pumped out everything from toys to clothes to her hair bows, of which more than 80million had been sold to children worldwide by 2019. So it’s little wonder that by the time she entered the Big Brother house in 2025 her dizzying early years had left her feeling somewhat ‘lost’.
Things didn’t improve a great deal when she met fellow contestant Mickey Rourke. On her second day in the house, the actor bluntly asked JoJo if she was a lesbian and remarked: ‘If I stay longer than four days, you won’t be gay any more.’ In the smoking area, he said, ‘I need a fag,’ then pointed to JoJo and added, ‘I’m not talking to you.’ After being warned for using homophobic language, he was ejected from the house four days later.
‘Honestly, Mickey Rourke isn’t a homophobe… he’s not really even an a**hole,’ JoJo says now of their encounter. ‘He just doesn’t know. He’s not educated, he’s not happy, he’s very lonely and he had a very rough young childhood that is now catching up with him.’
Mickey, 73, has previously spoken of how his stepfather physically abused him as a child. ‘That was the side of him I got to see afterwards. There was a part of me that was hurt, but then there was another part of me that felt, “He’s an old man who’s sad inside.” So I took the time to get to know him.’
Fellow contestant Chris Hughes comforted JoJo after her bruising encounter, and that’s when things in the house really got interesting. Was that the moment love blossomed for her? ‘Definitely not!’ she shrieks. ‘It was more, “This is a nice man.” He was a gentleman straight away.’
After exiting the house on April 25, JoJo and Chris continued to maintain that their friendship was platonic. So when was the moment she realised she’d fallen in love with him?
‘It was some time in the beginning of May,’ she says. Chris, an avid Sunderland FC fan, had called her after his team won. ‘I stepped out of dance rehearsal in LA so I could speak to him about his game. That’s when I realised, “Well, I think I’ve fallen for the man!”’ she laughs. ‘Because why would I ever care about this otherwise?’ Their first official date was on May 27 at Mastro’s – a steakhouse overlooking the ocean in Malibu – ‘and we now celebrate our anniversary on the 27th of every month’.
It’s hard not to be charmed hearing her talk so effusively about 33-year-old Chris – at the mention of his name, her eyes all but dissolve into love-heart emojis. Yet the course of their love hasn’t run smoothly. During the wrap party for Big Brother, JoJo and her partner Kath ended up discussing the state of their relationship, with JoJo admitting she wasn’t happy.
Kath later posted on TikTok about their split, and when asked if she’s now made up with her former lover, JoJo admits she hasn’t. ‘But they’re in a thriving relationship by the looks of it,’ says JoJo of Kath (who uses the pronouns they/them), ‘which makes me very happy. And I’m thriving in my life and very happy. I think they’ve moved on wonderfully and I know I have.’
Sadly, when the news of Chris and JoJo’s relationship emerged, it attracted an ‘extreme amount of hate’ from the gay community. ‘I was shocked,’ admits JoJo. ‘I thought it would have been a beautiful thing because I thought the gays would have said, “Hey, cool.” We preach “love is love” as a community, and I thought this might actually help some people who don’t support the LGBTQIA community to go, “Well, she’s loved women, she’s loved men – I guess I’m OK with it then.” I was excited about that, but then it was my own community that turned on me.
JoJo, here aged 12 in 2016, became a child star when she appeared on the reality show Dance Moms from 2015 to 2016
JoJo and Chris formed a strong friendship in the Celebrity Big Brother house. She was dating non-binary actor Kath Ebbs at the time
JoJo is part of the line-up for this year’s edition of Channel 4 ’s The Great Celebrity Bake Off For Stand Up To Cancer
‘I didn’t come out to try to be the LGBTQIA superhero – I came out because I was happy and it was who I loved.’ Yet when she started dating Chris it all changed. ‘It was like, “You’re the villain now.”’ Did she get death threats? ‘Oh God, every day for everything I do!’ she says. ‘For the outfits I wear, everything. That’s very sadly normal. It’s been ten years of it.’
But while it was a shock for her fans to see her fall for Chris, with some believing ‘our relationship was fake’, no one was more shocked than JoJo herself. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever fall for a man,’ she says. ‘I have wonderful boys that are friends and I’ve never questioned my feelings towards them. But I loved Chris and his energy and it felt so right. I could be around him and never get bored, never get tired. When I am tired he’s the only one I want to speak to.’
She’s so happy, in fact, that she’s already thinking of marriage. ‘Every day,’ she laughs. ‘I’m a girl in love – of course I’m thinking about it! People say, “Oh, you’re so young.” But I’ve lived a very different life to other people and I’m about ten years older than I actually am in terms of the phases of life. And if he waits too long I will absolutely propose to him.’
They’ve also talked about children. ‘I’ve told him the names I like and he likes them too.’ As for where they’d live, ‘I’d want our kids to know both of our families,’ she says. ‘It’s too much for either family to move, so I would think we’d fly back and forth.’
With Chris based in Britain, having just completed a presenting stint for the BBC at the Winter Olympics, and JoJo based in LA, the couple get to see each other only every three or four weeks. ‘We speak every day, but distance sucks,’ she says. When they do get together, ‘Chris is the better chef. I cook breakfast and I can cook chicken and steak and vegetables. But I’m a very plain cook, I don’t get fancy with it.’
Which brings us to Celebrity Bake Off, in which she faces off against reality star Molly-Mae Hague and comedians Babatunde Aléshé and Richard Herring (other episodes feature Rag’n’Bone Man, DJ Edith Bowman and actor Ralf Little).
JoJo admits she hadn’t watched the show, but says, ‘I think you’d have to live under a rock not to know about it.’ Without giving too much away, she acquits herself beautifully after a wobbly start with her signature challenge, a decorated traybake. ‘I don’t care what anybody says – every six-year-old would have loved it,’ she laughs.
She’s also relaunching her JoJo Bows, a business that has reportedly raked in a staggering £336million to date. Whereas before she wasn’t really involved in the process, now she’s creative director and she’s added more grown-up styles, which are called Joelle Bows (based on her birth name, Joelle Joanie).
She hints that she and Chris might work together soon. And although they’re approaching their one-year anniversary, the naysayers are still out there. When quizzed about the relationship, Chris’s ex, reality star Olivia Attwood, noted, ‘She’s really famous’, seemingly intimating that Chris was with JoJo purely for her fame.
‘I’ve had relationships where I’ve got out because that person was not genuine,’ JoJo says, ‘so I know what that feels like. Sometimes you get played and that happens to everybody. But Chris? God no. When you’re with the human you’re meant to be with you never have those doubts.’
The Great Celebrity Bake Off For Stand Up To Cancer starts on Sunday, March 22 at 7.40pm on Channel 4. To find out more about Stand Up To Cancer and how you can donate, see channel4.com/SU2C. JoJo’s Bows are available at JoJoSiwastore.com.
