In September 2013, Jojo Siwa first debuted on Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition, a spinoff of the popular reality TV show Dance Moms. Since then, Siwa has risen to fame with a net worth of around fourteen million. She is known for her bubbly personality and big bows, making one million off of Claire’s bows alone. Thirty-six-year-old Colleen Ballinger began making videos on YouTube in 2006 under the name “Colleen Vlogs.” In 2008, she created the character Miranda Sings and created videos under this persona. This would become a big money-maker for Colleen as her target audience would become children. 
Fans of Colleen would eventually come forward and expose Colleen for the highly inappropriate things she had done to them when they were underage. One notable thing that Ballinger did was get into online group chats with her minor fans and ask them unseemly questions regarding inappropriate topics for children. Ballinger would also publish two books titled My Diarrhe and Slep-Help, which would have creepy topics in the books being targeted at children. Videos of her, when she had a public show doing skits with her fans, resurfaced when the controversy about her came to light. In these skits, she could be seen doing sexual things with her young fans. An example would be when she placed a bag of cheese balls down her pants and had the child participant on stage reach down into it. The list goes on.
On June 28, 2023, Ballinger uploaded an apology video to YouTube. The apology was in song form and sung with a ukulele. The song would be titled “Toxic Gossip Train.” Many quickly call out the ridiculousness of this in the form of videos and comments making fun of Colleen.
Jojo Siwa recently came out on the Howie Mandel Podcast, saying she has known Colleen since she was twelve. She sided with Ballinger, saying, “The internet can take a lie and run so far with it, to the point where you just can’t do anything about it. I know Colleen very, very, very well, and I think the work that Colleen has done for the internet is incredible. I think her creativity is incredible. Miranda Sings is a character, is a comedian. And I think it’s tough to be a character where people also look at you as a real human behind that character. She’s cool, you know? And the problem is, I think the internet was able to capitalize off her cancellation, and they still are… and it’s not okay because a lot of it is based on lies. And it hurts me to see.”
This caused outrage in the media, given all the things that Colleen has done. Solid evidence shows that what Colleen has been accused of doing is valid. For Siwa to say that Ballinger’s controversy is based on lies would be calling the victims of Ballinger liars.
