76 Time Sept. 2–9, 2019
took her to community theater auditions,
believing in JoJo’s intrinsic specialness,
even throughout a long string of rejec-
tions. Looking back, it’s hard to discern
what might have underscored such blind
faith in her daughter. A stage mom with
a dream denied seems too easy. “I mean,
everybody thinks their kid is going to be
famous,” Jessalynn says. In this case, it just
happened to work out.
In 2012, when JoJo was 9, Jessa lynn
submitted JoJo’s solo dance routine to
Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition,
a short-lived Lifetime reality show in
which children competed for $100,000
and a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet. “I
was like, ‘O.K., I’ll just send a tape in,’”
Jessa lynn says. Producers got in touch
the same day, and JoJo joined the cast for
Season 2, making a splash as a mouthy
micro diva enlivened by the series’ man-
ufactured showbiz drama. “There were
ups and downs with doing that show,”
Jessalynn says now. “When we were hav-
ing hard times, I was like, ‘God, I didn’t
even ask her really if she wanted to do this
show.’ But she loved it so much.”
The show was not renewed for Sea-
son 3, but soon both mother and daughter
were recruited for roles on the network’s
flagship franchise, Dance Moms. A minor
Siwa diaspora ensued: Tom stayed in
Omaha with JoJo’s brother Jayden, while
Jessalynn and JoJo transplanted to L.A.
In Jessalynn’s eyes, this was the first big
“level up.” They took the chance with-
out hesitation. “I think we kind of made
a conscious decision when we were doing
Dance Moms. I was like, ‘Let’s just make
it fun.’”
On Dance Moms, the Siwas carved out
roles as tacky arrivistes with way too much
ambition. Sure, the other dancers were ca-
pable onstage, but offstage, JoJo couldn’t
seem to turn it off. The word obnoxious
got thrown around a lot. Host Abby LeeMiller called her a “greedy little monster”
but still gave her the show’s rotating par-
ticipation honor—a place at the top of the
Dance Moms pyramid. Jessa lynn leaned
into the stage-mom arche type, dressing
her daughter in foofy handmade bows,
partly to drum up some narrative ten-
sion. “Abby would say, ‘She can’t wear
a bow tomorrow,’ and I’d be like, ‘Abby,
you can’t tell us what to wear,’” she says.
“Then I would come home, and I would be
like, ‘JoJo, Abby doesn’t want you to wear
a bow tomorrow,’ and she’d go, ‘That’s it.
I’m wearing a bigger bow.’”
On Dance Moms, the Siwas were fun to
hate, but also fun to root for. They lasted
two seasons, departing on good terms to
“pursue other opportunities.” The first was
the self-released single “Boomerang”—a
“Hey Mickey”–esque address to the hat-
ers, imbued with more raw attitude than
vocal talent. “I don’t really care about
what they say,” rapped 13-year-old JoJo.
“I’mma come back like a boomerang.”
This post–Dance Moms JoJo was a vic-
tim, not a villain. She projected a new, un-
flappable ethos with an amped-up look:
more glitter, more Lycra, more rainbows,
more sequins and a side ponytail choked
back so tight that her adolescent hairline
seemed to grimace. She crowned each
ensemble with her now signature bow—
the kind of personal touch that brand-
ing types call “ownable.” She signed her
first merchandising deal in 2016 with the
tween retailer Claire’s. Since then, JoJo
has sold more than 35 million hair bows,
or just over three per YouTube subscriber.
After Claire’s came Nickelodeon, and
the overall talent deal that launched JoJo
from merely notable to famous. Her sin-
gular talent is hard to pin down. The Nick
contract alone involves numerous voca-
tions: She dances. She sings. She posts
videos and photos. Her likeness appears,
in animated form, on The JoJo & Bow-Culture
an age when more than one-third of kids
rank social-media stars as role models, ac-
cording to market-research firm Mintel,
she’s managed to be herself in a way that’s
both earnest and lucrative.
The line at that day’s meet and greet
showed JoJo Siwa T-shirts in endless
permutations: a purple JoJo shirt with a
large JoJo head, a gray JoJo shirt with a
small JoJo head, a black JoJo shirt with
four JoJos in a row.
“I like your dress,” Siwa said, posing
with a girl in a rainbow JoJo outfit. That
girl was replaced by one more, wearing
yet another printed likeness of the star.
Siwa stooped to meet the smaller
image of her face. “Awesome!” she said,
and snapped a photo. Nearly every picture
of Siwa with a fan was also a picture of
Siwa with herself. While other child stars
were not girl, not yet woman, Siwa made it
clear: She was both girl and brand.
Joelle Joanie Siwa was born in Omaha
in 2003, the year Mister Rogers died.
Her father Tom was a chiropractor. Her
mother Jessalynn, the granddaughter of
ballroom owners, operated her own dance
school. (Both have since retired and now
work for JoJo in different capacities.)
Practically speaking, JoJo danced out of
the womb. “I just knew from about the
time she was like 1½ that she was really
special because I’d seen a lot of kids,”
Jessa lynn says. “She just liked being on-
stage, and everyone liked to watch her. I
just took it and ran.”
Home videos online show JoJo onstage
beginning at age 2: pirouetting in a se-
quined flapper dress, modeling a swim-
suit in a pageant, performing a cheese-
cake routine to Nat King Cole. Her grace
is occluded by her preschool motor skills,
but the talent for winning a crowd is ev-
ident. Jessalynn choreographed JoJo’s
solo routines for local dance recitals. She
JOJO INC.
Siwa’s products have
netted more than
$1 billion in global
retail sales since they
launched in 2017.