JoJo Siwa is clarifying her feelings about the word “lesbian.” The So You Think You Can Dance judge took to TikTok Saturday after receiving backlash for the way she jokingly described her issue with the word in an interview with Yahoo Life. Telling the outlet that she enjoys her gay icon status and does identify as a lesbian, it’s not the word she uses.
“I don’t like the word itself,” she joked to the publication. “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!” After the article came out, Siwa became the subject of ire from social media users who thought she was putting a negative spin on the word, including one user the Dance Moms alum decided to respond to after they wrote, “She called it a dirty word. She did nothing but insult us, my sexuality is not a dirty word.”
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“Okay, I’ve been going through my comments, and I just want to make something super clear, I never said that lesbian was a dirty word, and I never ever would say that it’s a dirty word because it is not,” said the “Boomerang” singer. “It is not a bad word. It is not a slur, and it especially is not a word that I am ashamed of saying or ashamed of identifying as by any means.”
“Now if you look at the comment that this is commented under – if that makes sense – it says ‘I’m sorry that people are trying to cancel you for not liking the sound of the word,’” she continued. “And that’s exactly it. I don’t hate the word lesbian. I just, whenever somebody talks to me about my sexuality, I just say that that I’m gay. It’s not a word that flows off the tongue for me if that makes sense.”
Siwa came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community in January 2021 and introduced the public to girlfriend Kylie Prew not long after. The pair split in October amid Siwa’s complicated Dancing With the Stars schedule but sparked rumors that they had rekindled their romance in May before confirming their second shot at love.
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