JoJo Siwa‘s bow is a signature of her brand, so when Instagram head Adam Mosseri saw the teen star on video without the accessory, he was understandably shocked.
“It was right around my birthday that I realized, I kind of want to do my hair different,” Siwa said during a Q&A as part of Instagram and Facebook’s Creator Week.
It was a simple answer for the 18-year-old, but its significance went deeper. Siwa’s mom first dyed her daughter’s hair blonde and decorated it with a bow even before she appeared on “Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition” at age 9, which led to her casting on “Dance Moms.” The TV exposure led to a billion-dollar enterprise as a pop star, soon to be starring in her own reality show.
“It surprisingly was harder to tell [my mom] that I wanted to wear my hair different [than it was to come out],” recalled Siwa, who identifies as pansexual and came out to the world via an Instagram post soundtracked by Lady Gaga’s anthemic “Born This Way.”
“It just felt like the right time to do something different and to do something maybe a little more mature, a little upgrade,” she added. “But the bow is still a part of my life. I still love bows. I forever will. They’re who I am, but maybe I won’t wear it every day.”
Siwa will also continue to stay true to her roots with her own new reality show. She revealed to Mosseri that she and her mom began filming that day, June 8.
“We’ve been in development of the show for years,” Siwa said.
Outside of the unscripted space, the digital star is set to star in “Bounce,” based on the Megan Shull young adult novel of the same name. She recently caused buzz in an Entertainment Weekly story where she said she doesn’t want to have a kissing scene with a male character. A source close to the movie told PvNewthat the scene could be cut if she wasn’t comfortable with it.
“For creators, the biggest thing I learned is make sure you love it,” Siwa advised. “Something with me that really connected to my audience is that everything was so genuine and they could see right through that. They could see it was really me behind it.”
