Cool for the summer! JoJo Siwa opened up about her journey toward discovering her sexuality — and which fellow celebrities helped her get there.
In a TikTok video posted on Tuesday, October 4, Siwa, 19, participated in the “One Thing About Me” social media trend by sharing her “gay awakening” story, in which she listened to Demi Lovato’s 2015 hit “Cool for the Summer” on repeat.
“I really, really liked it and listened to it all the time,” the former Nickelodeon star said on the beat. “I did not know what it meant back then but now that I’m much older and I understand, I know what it means.”
The second big moment came three years later when she watched Jenna Dewan perform a Magic Mike routine on Lip Sync Battle. “I pretty much watched it every day. Little me, she didn’t know she was gay,” the Dance Moms alum said. “Until …”
Siwa then recalled a personal experience in which she went on a first date with a man that helped her reach the conclusion that she was gay.
“A couple years later, a man was my first date and he wanted to have sex with me and I did not want to — never wanted to, grossed out by the thought of it,” she explained, before concluding the video, “Immediately knew men are not my thing. Women are my gig. Gotta go.”
This isn’t the first time Siwa has mentioned Lovato, 30, and Dewan, 41, in relation to her sexuality.
The High School Musical: The Musical: The Series actress initially revealed she was a member of the LGBTQ+ community in January 2021. At the time, Siwa uploaded a photo wearing a black t-shirt that read, “Best. Gay. Cousin. Ever.”
A few months later, the Nebraska native went on the Camp Rock star’s 4D With Demi Lovato show and opened up further about her journey.
“I’ve been figuring out my gay awakenings recently. I think I realized that my very first gay awakening was Jenna Dewan’s performance on Lip Sync Battle,” Siwa shared with Lovato. At the time “I think that was one of them. But do you remember your dancer, her name is JoJo Gomez, and you did ‘Cool for the Summer’ together? I remember seeing that and just being a little too interested.”
The “Skyscraper” songstress, for their part, responded, “I didn’t come out until like 2017. But ‘Cool for the Summer’ was like, 2014, 2015, so that, to me, it was my way of saying I’m not ready to come out.”
Weeks after coming out, Siwa confirmed she was in a relationship with Kylie Prew. The pair dated on and off for almost two years before calling it quits in August. Last month, the So You Think You Can Dance? judge confirmed her budding romance with Avery Cyrus via a TikTok video. The couple made their red carpet debut a few days later at the Los Angeles premiere of Alanis Morissette’s musical Jagged Little Pill.
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