JoJo Siwa Gets Swatted After Coming Out
On Jan. 22, JoJo Siwa took to Tiktok to lip-sync “Born This Way,” otherwise known as “Lady Gaga’s queer anthem.” Although it hadn’t been confirmed by that point, many fans assumed it was a coming out video and couldn’t be more supportive. Few days later, JoJo confirmed her coming out via Instagram Live, where she explained how overwhelmed she was with happiness and how thankful she was to all her supporters. She also posted a picture of herself wearing a shirt that reads “best gay cousin ever,” which was catiptioned “my cousin got me a new shirt.”
“For the last 72 hours, I have gotten the most endless amount of love and support. Thank you. I think humans are really incredible people. I wanna share everything with the world — I really do. But, I also want to keep things in my life private until they’re ready to be public,” JoJo shared. “I’m so happy. I think coming out has this stigma around it that it’s a really, really, really scary thing, but it’s not anymore. There’s so many accepting and loving people out there- Of course, people are gonna say it’s not normal, but it’s your normal. It’s okay to be a little different. It’s okay to be a little weird. It’s okay to be a little strange. It’s okay to be different and I think a lot of people are afraid to be different, and that’s something that we should never, ever, ever be afraid of. It’s something that we should be proud of and celebrate!”
Shortly after JoJo’s coming out confirmation, she was swatted. Swatting is a “high-stakes prank where someone makes a false police report with the intention of luring law enforcement to the resident of a person who’s done something to anger them.” It has still yet to be confirmed whether or not the paparazzi made these reports. JoJo shared that she feared someone was inside her house and she didn’t know about it, or that someone came to hide and came through her backyard. LAPD officers swarmed her $3.4 million mansion.
“I feel bad because there was about 50 police outside my house and those police could have had much better time spent somewhere else actually helping somebody instead of dealing with a fake claim from paparazzi,” JoJo explained. “Literally just come ring my doorbell, paparazzi. I’ll wave to you from my window.”
