Many celebrities were in attendance at Saturday’s 2022 Kids’ Choice Awards on Sunday, April 10. However, despite her nomination for “Favorite Social Media Music Star,” fans and fellow stars noticed that former Dance Moms star and YouTuber JoJo Siwa was missing from the audience.
Siwa took to TikTok on Saturday, explaining her absence.
Siwa stated, “A lot of you have been asking me why I’m not at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards tonight, and the answer is very simple: I wasn’t invited,” she said on TikTok. “I’m not sure why…but I just did not get an invite.” Siwa elaborated in the caption of her post, adding, “I don’t want you thinking I didn’t want to be there, I would’ve loved to be there but I wasn’t invited :(.”
Fans and fellow peers of Siwa alike were confused about her absence from the show, as she was nominated at this year’s KCAs for “Favorite Social Media Music Star.” She ultimately lost out to fellow nominee and TikTok star, Dixie D’Amelio.
After Siwa posted to social media explaining her absence, fans immediately began speculating as to why Siwa might not have received an invitation to the KCAs. Some fans are even taking to Twitter to insinuate that Siwa not being invited for the first time in years, along with her public coming out and cutting off her signature ponytail, are not coincidental. Siwa retweeted some of these tweets.
A source from Variety Magazine mentions that a source close to the show’s producers said that Siwa’s missing ticket “was an honest mistake.” The source goes on to explain that the mishap occurred “because of a much-reduced audience size due to COVID protocols.”
The same source from Variety also disputed the allegations of the children’s television network suddenly having issues with Siwa being a member of the LGBTQ+ community after coming out in January of 2021. The source mentioned that her not being invited had “nothing to do with her as a person… That is so off the mark and very upsetting. It was truly an unfortunate mistake and she definitely should have been there.”
Fans on Tiktok have been commenting #JusticeforJoJo under the official Nickelodeon account’s posts as Siwa has been outspoken before about the television network. For example, in September of 2021, she called out the company for not allowing her to play certain songs on her D.R.E.A.M. tour. “I go out on tour in January. My movie musical [The J Team] was just released (with 6 new original songs)…Nickelodeon told me today that I’m not allowed to perform/add any of the songs from the film into my show. These are MY songs, MY voice, MY writing. Does this seem fair???” she tweeted.
“Working for a company as a real human being treated as only a brand is fun until it’s not,” said Siwa in a previous comment. The Dance Moms alum’s song, “One Chance,” was used during the award show. “My song made the cut, but not me,” she responded to the comment.
Fans are continuously tweeting about the speculated injustice circulating the teen star. “Being connected to a kids [sic] channel shouldn’t mean you have to stop being yourself,” one Twitter user wrote.
Nickelodeon has yet to speak out or give comments to any sources on why Siwa was not invited.
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