JoJo Siwa has hit back at a troll who referred to her as a man during a live performance over the weekend.
The former child star and pop performer was a headline act at LA Pride in the Park on Saturday (8 June), high on a bill that also included Ricky Martin, Muna and Dominican rapper Tokischa.
Fresh from her performance at London’s Mighty Hoopla the previous week, Siwa, 21, took the stage at the California event and spoke to the crowd in between her songs.
At one point during her crowd-work session, the ex-Dance Moms star referred to an unsavoury remark she’d received in response to a photo of her performing in London, and clarified that the audience differed from those who troll her on the internet.
“You guys aren’t the d**ks online,” she said. “Not going to lie, I have to deal with a lot of them online. I woke up this morning and, as one does, I opened my phone and the first thing that came up was a picture of me performing back when I was in London a couple of days ago.
“Some guy – I stalked his page, he was definitely straight,” she noted, which elicited a chorus of boos from the audience.
“This guy commented, and this was a new comment for me,” Siwa continued. “It wasn’t about a dance that I do. It wasn’t about my hairline, it wasn’t that I’m a 5-foot-9 giant toddler. It said, ‘This man needs to be stopped.’”
“He said that to me! The straight guy told me that I need to be stopped. This man needs to be stopped,” Siwa countered.
However, the “Karma” singer soon admitted that she was mostly unmoved by the comment for numerous reasons.
“Number one, my d**k was bigger than his and number two, I f***ed more girls than him,” she quipped.
Earlier in her rant, Siwa touched upon the wide range of fans she has, from young children to adults.
“I have performed in front of six-year-olds louder than you,” she teased, before pointing to a child near the front of the stage.
“In fact, there is a six-year-old right there – why the f*** are you here? I love it. I’m so here for it. You’re awesome, dude. My point is don’t let that superstar be louder than you guys. Lemme hear you make some f***ing noise.”
In his four-star review of Mighty Hoopla, The Independent’s Adam White noted the dancer and singer’s time on the main stage as one of the highlights of the weekend’s events.
He writes: “Siwa spends what feels like half her allotted time talking about her haters and her one-time army of 12-year-old fans. It’s a bit of a calamity, but Siwa’s energy – a mix of uber-precise choreography and haphazard chaos – fits the brief here at Hoopla.”
