Whether you watched her on Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, on Dance Moms, or have younger siblings who watched her on Nickelodeon, chances are, you most likely know who Jojo Siwa is. How could you not? You couldn’t step into a Claire’s or a Target without seeing her sparkly, glittery, multicolored bows front and center. There was just no escaping her. However, Jojo Siwa has been in the news recently — and not for a good reason. Leigha Sanderson, a former member of Jojo Siwa’s girl group, XOMG POP, alleged that Jojo and her mom Jessalyn were abusive to her during her time on Jojo’s show, doing things like playing favorites, shaming group members for having disabilities, being indifferent to group members’ disabilities, pitting girls against each other, and calling them names. You would think after being on a show like Dance Moms, a show known for its highly stressful and emotionally abusive atmosphere, Jojo would be more empathetic toward the next generation and want to ensure that they don’t experience the abuse she did. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and while I am disappointed, I am not surprised because it seems as though Jojo Siwa has never really processed the abuse she endured in a healthy way, unlike the other original Dance Moms girls. And because of that, she is repeating the cycle of abuse.
Invalidating others’ experiences
A major problem with Jojo Siwa is that she likes to invalidate the experiences of her fellow Dance Moms cast members. Whenever another member of Dance Moms talks about their experiences, she gets offended and comments, even though it’s not about her at all. For example, one of the moms, Christi Lukasiak, was on a Zoom call with a group of college girls. One of them asked if Christi still talked to Gianna, and Christi said that Gianna “is not nice.” In response, Jojo preceded to call it the “most disgusting and ignorant thing [she’s] ever heard anybody say” (although given that she’s been in the presence of Abby Lee Miller, I find that hard to believe) and went on a rant about how sweet Gianna is and how hard she works. What Jojo isn’t realizing is that just because you had a positive experience with someone, it doesn’t mean everyone else had a positive experience as well. Your positive experience doesn’t cancel out someone else’s negative experience. She doesn’t seem to understand the full extent of what the girls have suffered, because, for a lot of the girls, this was their whole life! They went to the ALDC before the show even began, and have known Abby and Gianna for years. So they were very emotionally invested in the whole experience. Jojo, on the other hand, didn’t join the team until season five and was only on for two seasons. Because she wasn’t there from the beginning, she wasn’t as emotionally invested, and she just saw it as another job, rather than her whole life.
Another huge example of Jojo invalidating someone’s experience is rather recent, actually. In a newly-released trailer of the upcoming Dance Moms reunion, it appears as though Jojo shaded Maddie, Kenzie, and Nia for not participating. She said, “Them not being here is kind of like let me erase my past, pretend it never happened, shove it down the drain when that’s like why you are who you are.” What Jojo doesn’t realize is that the three of them are valid in not wanting to revisit that point in their lives. First of all, who wants to revisit a point in their life when they were yelled at and overworked every day? Second of all, Maddie was always told by Abby that she always had to win and be perfect, and Mackenzie was always compared to Maddie, so I don’t blame the Zieglers for not wanting to go “back in time” as Kenzie said. As for Nia, she was constantly excluded and the subject of racist treatment by Abby. She decided not to go as she is in school, which I also don’t blame her for. I mean, she’s the only cast member to be on the show for all seven seasons! Poor Nia has done enough. The bottom line for this section is that Jojo needs to stop telling people how they should feel about their own experiences, and she also needs to learn empathy.
Perpetuating the Cycle of Abuse
Another problem is that it seems like Jojo Siwa has not yet come to terms with what has happened to her, and doesn’t see it for the abuse that it is. She thinks that just because it worked out and she became famous, that means what she went through was justified, and that it’s ok to subject other people to that treatment too. Nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than something Jojo says in the first episode of Siwa’s Dance Pop Revolution, “You think you’re gonna be able to handle my mom? I thought the same thing when I was nine. And look where I am now, so it may have worked.” She definitely seems to think that because she became a star, the ends justify the means.
It is also worth noting that Jojo is the only OG cast member to maintain their friendship with Abby since leaving the show, despite the fact that Abby clearly did not originally like her or want her there. Abby even screamed, “She’s not on the team!” When she was told Jojo would be joining the ALDC. And who could forget when Abby yelled at Jojo at Pyramid that she “deserves nothing!” and then got mad that Jojo was crying? Given how much Abby disliked Jojo on Dance Moms, it seems to me the reason that Abby is friends with Jojo is because of how famous she became, because she is one of the only OG cast members to still talk to her, and she wants to take credit for Jojo’s fame.
Also, it is noteworthy that a lot of the things Leigha accused Jojo and Jessalyn of inflicting on the members of XOMG pop are teaching techniques that Abby Lee Miller is infamous for using — and Jojo herself experienced — such as pitting girls against one another, being verbally abusive, playing favorites, calling girls names, expecting people to perform with bad injuries, and shaming them for things they can’t control, like disabilities. I sympathize with Jojo because she clearly has a lot of unresolved emotional trauma from her time in the dance world. However, my sympathy for her only goes so far because while you are not responsible for what you went through, you are responsible for your healing, and making sure you don’t pass your trauma onto anyone else. The other Dance Moms girls seem to realize that what they went through was wrong and have taken responsibility for their healing. For example, in an interview with NikkieTutorials, Maddie said: “A lot of the things that the show promoted is very not what I stand for, like having an older woman yelling at kids — I feel like that’s obviously not a great environment and I’m glad we’ve grown up and gotten out of that.” If the other girls are able to realize what they went through was wrong and heal from it in a healthy way, then Jojo has no excuse.
Problematic friends
Jojo Siwa has also come under fire for associating with some celebrities who have been abusive or predatory. Not only is she still close with Abby, who, as we know, engages in many abusive teaching tactics, but she is also close friends with YouTuber Colleen Ballinger, who had been accused of grooming and engaging in inappropriate behavior with underage fans, for which there is evidence of. Despite the evidence, Jojo defended Colleen on Howie Mandel’s podcast, saying that Colleen and her family had been “nothing but kind” to her and that it was the internet “taking a lie and running with it.” Like with Gianna, Jojo doesn’t seem to realize that just because Colleen didn’t hurt her doesn’t mean that other people had the same experience.
In all, it is quite sad and disappointing to see that Jojo is perpetuating the cycle of abuse. While I do feel sympathetic for what Jojo had to endure, while you are not responsible for your trauma, you are responsible for your healing. Jojo has not done the work to heal her wounds, and as a result, she has bled on people who haven’t cut her. Jojo needs to just take some time to process her trauma, both for her own benefit and for the benefit of others. Not only will it help her heal, but it will help her treat people better too.