JoJo Siwa Isn’t Interested In Getting You to Like Her: ‘Any Attention Is Attention’

Yes, JoJo Siwa is aware that there are a lot of people making fun of her — and she’s fine with that.

In a new cover story for Ladygunn, Siwa spoke at length about her relationship with fame, revealing that as long as people are talking about her, she feels as though she’s done her job. “I’m an attention whore,” she said. “My favorite thing to do on this earth is to entertain and to make people smile and laugh, whether or not they are laughing with me or laughing at me. Obviously, no one likes being hated, but I enjoy being entertaining, and that is how people are entertained.”

Expanding on her point, Siwa added that she felt “any attention is attention,” and shared an anecdote about correcting her management team on their stated goals for her career. “I just signed with new management, and they’re great, amazing people,” she said. “They were like, ‘All right, we got to get people to rally around you and really start to like you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh no, that’s not the point.'”

The “Guilty Pleasure” singer said that her relationship with attention came in part from her admiration of YouTubers Jake and Logan Paul. “I pulled so much of my social media marketing and inspiration from them back in the day,” she said. “Their views, their numbers, their marketing — they were geniuses. They still are geniuses … all I wanted to do was be them. And so I figured, ‘How can I do that but in my world?'”

Siwa managed to keep fans’ attention with her cover shot for the magazine, in which she wore a bedazzled corset in the shape of a man’s torso along with a rhinestoned codpiece. Rising hip-hop star GloRilla even shared her thoughts on the photo, simply writing on X, “Ok moose knuckle.”

The story comes after a year of headline-making antics for Siwa. Upon the release of her “bad girl” single “Karma” back in April, fans were shocked by the performer’s Kiss-inspired music video look, as well as her jerking dance moves. When she told Billboard in a video interview that she wanted to create a new genre called “gay pop,” she was roundly criticized by fellow queer artists and critics alike.

But, as Siwa sees it, her plan worked. “Karma is still an earworm. It’s crazy that it still has some relevance five months later,” she said in her interview. “And that’s the whole point.”