JoJo Siwa’s “Karma” Controversy. Photo credit: Today.com.

JoJo Siwa is someone who has taken pop culture by storm multiple times throughout the years. Before her early ages of fame, she starred in “Dance Moms,” and once she left the show she became known for her career with Nickelodeon, gigantic bows and “catchy” songs and everything rainbow. But little did we know that the rainbow would be ironic, because according to Entertainment Weekly, Siwa came out of the closet in January 2021 to announce she was dating her first girlfriend, Kylie Prew. Fast forward to present day and Siwa has gone from PG to rated R and not many people are here for it.

As Siwa began to transform from kid-friendly teen idol to pop culture baddie, she experienced backlash and humiliation, especially in 2024. Recently she released a song called “Karma” which is her first ever song with foul language. The song has caused a lot of controversy not only because of how annoyingly catchy it is, and the cringiness of the music video, but also because the majority of the media believes she stole the song from Brit Smith, who attained ownership of the song from Miley Cyrus and Rock Mafia but never released it. On April 15, Smith released her version of the song to streaming platforms such as iTunes. 

Connor Murray from Forbes believes Smith was prompted to release the song after Siwa made a fool of herself releasing her “version.” Smith’s song currently ranks higher on iTunes than Siwa’s. Murray says Siwa claimed that “Smith told Page 6 she wanted ‘Karma’ to be her debut single, but her label, Interscope Records, wanted her to release her song ‘Provocative’ instead,” yet Siwa recently claimed she had no idea who Smith was at the time, and, according to Murray, “Denied allegations made by social media users that she ‘stole’ Smith’s song.”   

People have different opinions on Siwa, but the majority should be able to agree that she didn’t come up with “Karma” by herself. Hopefully, she will eventually speak out to tell the full truth before cancel culture 100% boots her off the internet.