That’s a wrap on JoJo Siwa’s bow era!
In the first episode of her new iHeart podcast, JoJo Siwa Now, the Dance Moms alum explained why she has not been spotted wearing her signature accessory.
“I am now 20 years old. I have not stuck a hair bow in my hair for two years now,” she admitted. “Nothing against the hair bow, I just haven’t worn it.”
Siwa continued: “And I still love them. I still love JoJo bows. I love what JoJo bows mean. I love what they stand for. I love my past of wearing them every day. I still sometimes stick little bows in.”
“Anyways, it’s been a long two years, haven’t worn one,” she added.
Despite this, the bow is still a critical part of the JoJo Siwa brand. During the episode, the performer recalled a young girl approached her recently to ask, “Are you ‘JoJo with a Bow Bow?’ ”
The TikTok star said that the phrase caught her off-guard because she used to hear it all the time, but rarely does anymore.
“I’m not mad about it,” she said, adding that the JoJo bow — and particularly its message of acceptance — is still “something that I love.”
According to Siwa, everyone — her mom, Nickelodeon and fans — used to ask her to put an expiration date on her relationship with the career-defining accessory.
“I think for me the thing with the bow is honestly, people would always ask me, ‘When’s the bow bow gonna go go?’ ” she recalled, adding that she even asked herself. Her answer for at the time? “I didn’t know.”
“I had no idea and I’m… like I said, I’m a firm believer in life just takes its course and we just gotta lean with it, rock with it,” she said.
Then, the day after her 18th birthday, something changed.
“I literally was like, ‘I don’t want to wear it today.’ And my mom was like, ‘OK, so don’t.’ And I was like, ‘Alright. That feels right,’ ” she recalled.
Shortly after, Siwa joined the cast of Dancing with the Stars in 2021, and when a crew member asked if she would wear her iconic hair combo — a side ponytail and bow — during her dances on the series, she replied: “I don’t do that anymore.”
“And then they were like, ‘But we really want that iconic JoJo look,’ and I kind of realized, I was like, ‘Wait, this is a bad thing,’” she said.
“It’s not a bad thing to be 18 and wear a bow,” she continued. “Who cares? It’s who I am. It’s what I am. And so I said, ‘Yes.’ And I was like, ‘You know what? I will stick the thing in my head, I absolutely will.’ ”
So she donned the bow for the first time as an adult for DWTS, a “comforting” experience with an added plus: “I don’t even have to think about how I’m doing my hair today.”
But it was not a permanent return to the signature style.
In April 2022, Siwa did the big chop, making ponytails a no-go and bows a lot harder to style. She has since gotten hair extensions, but rarely wears high ponytails — let alone bow-adorned ones. But whether she wears them or not, they will always be part of her, she said.
“I mean, I’ve got nothing against the bow. I love it, I always will.”