Joelle Joanie "JoJo" Siwa is an American dancer, singer, actress, and YouTube personality. She is known for appearing for two seasons on Dance Moms along with her mother, Jessalynn Siwa, and for her singles "Boomerang" and "Kid in a Candy Store". Siwa posts daily videos of her day-to-day life on her YouTube channels, "JoJo Siwa TV" and "It's JoJo Siwa". Her fans are called Siwanatorz.
Early life and career
Joelle Joanie Siwa was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 2003 to Jessalynn Siwa, a professional dance instructor from Iowa, and Dr. Tom Siwa, a chiropractor from Nebraska. She has one sibling, an older brother named Jayden Siwa who is also a vlogger. Siwa started her career as a top-5 finalist and the youngest contestant on the second season of Abby's Ultimate Dance Competition, produced by Abby Lee Miller of Dance Moms fame. She appeared on the show with her mother and was eliminated in week 9. Siwa soon began to began appear on Dance Moms, beginning with auditioning for Miller's "ALDC" dance competition team in 2014 and being selected for the team in early 2015. In May 2016, Siwa released "Boomerang" for digital download and a previous single, "I Can Make U Dance". "Boomerang" addresses the subject of online bullying. Its video has been viewed more than 900 million times and received over 2.5 million likes. In 2018, Siwa was named the Breakout Artist of the Year by Vivid Seats. In 2018, Siwa announced that she would be going on her first major concert tour in 2019, entitled D.R.E.A.M. The Tour. She was scheduled to visit a mixture of theaters, outdoor amphitheaters and stadiums, as well as indoor arenas in a total of 52 cities across the United States and Canada. Additionally, other performances would take place in the United Kingdom and Australia. The tour was scheduled to begin in Phoenix, Arizona on May 17. The first leg of the tour was scheduled to conclude on June 26 in Austin, Texas, before resuming for leg 2 on July 10 in Orlando, Florida. The final date of the second leg is scheduled to be on August 20 in Vancouver, Canada.
Other ventures
Known to audiences for wearing large, colorful bows in her hair, Siwa released a line of bows in 2016: JoJo's Bows, to be sold at Claire's, a fashion-accessory company aimed at 6-to-12-year-old girls. Her bows found a strong following among primary-school pupils in the United Kingdom and were ultimately subject to bans as teachers discovered that students unable to afford the bows, which retail for approximately £8 to £12 each, were bullied by their peers. Other reasons these schools gave for the bans was they were a distraction, harmed students' concentration, and violated the schools' dress code policies. Due to the bows' price and popularity, some stores began selling similar, homemade bows. In 2017 Siwa, whose bows are heavily featured in her music videos and general wardrobe, said they are a "symbol of power, confidence, believing-ness." Siwa subsequently partnered with the Americandepartment store J. C. Penney to release a line of accessories, bedroom decor, and a doll made in her likeness, and has released several books aimed at young children. In June 2019, the FDA issued a warning about dangerous levels of asbestos in a JoJo Siwa-branded cosmetics kit, prompting Claire's to recall the product. JoJo signed with Nickelodeon in 2017. She was in the film Blurt! with Jace Norman, Lip Sync Battle Shorties with Nick Cannon, and much more.
