Jojo’s Slipups a Potential PR Stunt

Jojo Siwa, of Nickelodeon and “Dance Moms” fame, recently started out on what appears to be the least successful “All press is good press” PR campaign I’ve ever seen.

Jojo blew up on TikTok in 2021 after publicly coming out in a video dancing to the song “Born this Way” by Lady Gaga, and opened up about her relationship with a woman named “Kylie Pru.”

The pair would split later that year and eventually get back together, but Jojo would continue to gain popularity on the app for her content surrounding her life as a dancer and experience with being Queer. A video of her swinging a bat at a softball game was posted to the official Major League Baseball TikTok account, and the slow-mo combined with the song “Best I Ever Had” by Drake that was trending at the time launched her account to one of the most followed on the app. Until recently, her account had been regularly active, but has not reached a similar engagement level as it once had.

Now, Jojo has taken on the common transition from wholesome child star to edgy pop-punk singer, but with the twist of confidently believing she is the first to do so in her generation (despite directly crediting Miley Cyrus as her inspiration for the change).

In the last two years, she allegedly cheated on her now ex-GF, has been spotted recklessly driving in a car plastered with photos of her face, had a guest at a party she hosted overdose on illicit substances, was recently proven to have lied about writing her new song “Karma,” and is suspected to have not used her own vocals, or to have heavily filtered them, after a video was shared of her singing in her car.

Jojo publicly stated that she had written the song about an ex and in the same snippet said her dream guest for her podcast would be her ex-GF Kylie, sparking rumors about the reason for the song’s release. TikTok users did some digging and quickly found that Karma had been written for Cyrus back in 2011, before being passed to a co-writer and now formerly retired artist named Brit Smith, who appears to be thrilled at her music career being suddenly resurrected by the positive response and has circulated the original music video she recorded for the song back in the early 2010s.

Cyrus has posted a tweet confirming her work on the song, and Smith’s subsequent recording of it.

The song’s bridge lyrics read “Karma’s a bitch, I should have known better. If I had a wish, I’d wish I never messed around,” with Jojo’s version changing the word “messed” to “f-ed.” That wasn’t an attempt at censorship, it was just a strange change that she made despite the way it sets the song’s beat slightly off, and leaves an odd juxtaposition between the childish censorship of “f-ed” and the casual “bitch” a few words before.

The deliberate and confusing nature of all of Jojo’s actions, in tandem with inflammatory comments such as her denial of knowing the band KISS (despite her new style looking like cosplay of Gene Simmons) or her constant denial of knowing who Brit Smith is, and her public egging on of all the drama, has caused many people to believe this is all an elaborate PR stunt.

Others suggest the sudden turn is related to alcohol or drug use since many of these changes came along with the star’s 21st birthday.

I personally believe this is an elaborate PR stunt that has tremendously backfired. Jojo has become a meme for her outlandish behavior and apparent lies, while Smith has blown up with her song making it to No. 8 on the iTunes Top 10 even as Jojo’s version has been kicked from the list altogether.

At this point, all I can see is the absolutely absurd nature of this whole situation. Like all things that get big on TikTok, this will all probably be old news in a week and everything will go back to semi-normal before some massive new revelation arises that catapults this back into the public consciousness.

I’m optimistic on Smith’s newfound vigor for her career, but I think it’s going to take a while for Jojo’s public cheating scandal or reckless driving to be forgotten and I don’t think she’s due for a successful career in music anytime soon.

Maybe Karma is a bitch, and Brit was right all along.

Advocate Staff