YouTuber and former Dance Moms star JoJo Siwa has responded to backlash after she admitted she didn’t like the word ‘lesbian’.
Siwa - who has 42 million followers on TikTok - came out last year when she posted a picture of herself wearing a t-shirt with the slogan: “Best. Gay. Cousin. Ever.”
The 19-year-old has previously said on an Instagram Live she prefers not to put labels on her sexuality. She’s currently dating social media influencer and singer Kylie Prew.
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JoJo recently caused controversy in an interview with Yahoo Life, when she said she didn’t like the word ‘lesbian’.
She told the outlet: “I don't like the word itself. It's just, like, a lot.
“But I mean, at the end of the day, that's what I am. It's like the word moist. It's just like, ugh!”
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Some of JoJo’s fans were furious at the comments. One Twitter user wrote: “Lesbian is not a dirty word and the stigma needs to be unlearned BADLY.”
Another added: “Um in light of a recent JoJo Siwa interview, here’s a quick reminder that lesbian isn’t a bad or dirty word.”
However, Siwa has now responded on TikTok, explaining she ‘never said the lesbian is a dirty word’.
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She told her followers: “It is not a bad word, it is not a slur and it is especially not a word I am ashamed of saying or identifying as by any means.
“I don’t hate the word lesbian. Whenever someone talks to me about my sexuality I just say that I’m gay.
“It’s not a word that flows off the tongue for me, if that makes sense?”
JoJo’s TikTok followers rushed to support her following the clarification.
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One wrote: “Yea I can understand that, some people prefer different words as different identifiers! I personally prefer ‘queer’ but they all rock!"
Another said: "I was so confused why people were trying to cancel you."
Siwa also raised eyebrows recently when she said that Full House star Candace Cameron Bure was the ‘rudest celebrity’ she’d ever met.
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It later emerged that Candace had reportedly declined to have a photo taken with an 11-year-old Siwa on the red carpet of the Fuller House premiere in 2016.
JoJo and Candace have since talked it out on the phone, although Siwa told Page Six Cameron Bure ‘didn’t share all the details of the meeting’ when she took to Instagram to apologise.
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Simon Fearn