In a new interview with JoJo Siwa, the singer shared how she currently views her queer identity in the aftermath of intense public scrutiny over her being with a man.

“I obviously have shared my entire life since I was nine,” she told US Weekly. “I’ve never hid anything. I was very honest when I was 17, and I fell in love with my best friend, who happened to be a girl… I never hid that. And so that was very, very real and very, very authentic.”

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“And then life does life. And I continued to share my journey and continued to be honest,” she continued. “This time, though, it was with a man, and all of a sudden, a lot of people who once were really supportive of me decided that, ‘Hey, bad!’… It’s because people could. It’s much easier to gossip and throw hate and throw shade than it is to be nice and kind and supportive, unfortunately. I don’t think the world should be that way, but it is that way.”

Siwa was referring to the fact that after she began dating English TV personality Chris Hughes last year, many queer people expressed that they felt betrayed. At the time, Siwa said she felt like the LGBTQ+ community was turning on her and judging her sexual fluidity.

“You can’t help love,” she said during a podcast interview.

She also said she’d been bullied since her relationship went public and had never been more afraid of a group than she was of LGBTQ+ people she didn’t know.

“Women holding hands, women cuddling together in public, I see them see me, and I see them laugh, I see them point, I see them roll their eyes now. I see them come up to me and take a photo and run away,” she said.

She said she didn’t think too hard about labels but would probably define herself as pansexual or queer. “I would define myself as happy,” she added, saying she had never been so in love.

Siwa also emphasized that the bi and pan erasure she was experiencing didn’t affect her since she was able to tune it out, but she said it was affecting others who were witnessing the backlash. The reaction was teaching people they can’t veer from strict labels without being bullied, she explained.

Nevertheless, it hasn’t stopped her from being herself, she told US Weekly.

“I will continue to keep sharing my journey. I will keep continuing to be an advocate for the LGBTQIA community… I will also keep being a member… I am not straight. I clearly am not a straight human being. I could never say that I’m straight,” she said.

“Am I in a straight relationship? Yes. Am I in love with a man? Yes! Do I want to spend the rest of my life with him? Absolutely. But does that discredit my past? Absolutely not. Zero,” she added.

She said people forget about “queer” and “pansexual” and “bisexual,” all of which she relates to.

“If I had to put a label on it, just to basically shut people down, yeah, I would say I’m probably pansexual. I fell in love with humans,” she said.

Siwa did the interview ahead of the release of her new music video, Serendipity, in which she surprises Hughes with a lavish performance detailing their love story.

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