JoJo Siwa talks with Big Joe about entertaining during the pandemic

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing one of the most amazing young talented entertainers I ever met. She’s JoJo Siwa, a 17 year old actor, dancer, singer and YouTube phenom who has set a new high bar in achieving stardom.

JoJo is friends with actor, director, producer David Henrie who has a new feel good movie out called This is the Year. I have a small part in the movie and it’s produced by my good friend Denis Gallagher and his group at Bold Entertainment.

JoJo talked with me in our movie pre-show before the premiere of David’s movie. I should also mention that the movie This is the Year is also produced by Selena Gomez, who starred with David in the Disney TV show The Wizards of Waverly Place.

As some of you may know I have had an amateur talent show for 20 years each summer on the beach at Jenkinson’s in Pt. Pleasant Beach, NJ. The Big Joe Jersey Talent Show has catapulted the careers of many young performers to Broadway, top ten appearances on network TV shows The Voice, America’s Got Talent, American Idol and other international opportunities.

I’ve never come across a more confident but grounded, focused passionate, entrepreneurial young talent who knows exactly what she wants and knows how to get it. JoJo Siwa and her mom Jessalynn got their start appearing in two seasons of the TV show Dance Moms.

JoJo’s stylish bows that she wears on stage became a staple of her wardrobe and in 2016 were made available to her fans and promptly sold over 80 million and still counting. While on tour JoJo was the youngest artist to headline and sell out the famous O2 Theatre in London. JoJo developed a line of dolls and sold over a million of them at Target surpassing sales of the iconic Barbie Doll at Target.

She’s been in a couple of movies, made appearances in dozens of TV series, and released a few successful single recordings and keeps true to her image and positive outlook.

When Covid -19 hit and her tour ended abruptly, she built a stage in her backyard, worked on a new show weekly, and made it available online to her fans. Boy does JoJo have fans; she currently has over 10 million followers with over 2 billion, yes billion, with a B, views on YouTube.

She has over 8.5 million followers on Instagram and over 17 million followers on TikTok. Combine those numbers with the 500,000 Twitter followers and over 500,000 likes on Facebook and you have one popular personality.

I found JoJo to be engaging and delightful to talk with. She was thrilled and glad to help promote the movie and I share that interview with you. Good luck to JoJo and check out the movie This is the Year. You can catch the trailer at thisistheyear.film. You’ll get a nice warm and fuzzy feeling and we could all use that right now. Thanks JoJo for your time and continued success.