Why JoJo Siwa Is Comparing Her Viral Cover Shoot to Harry Styles

JoJo Siwa knows the power of a little shock value.

The “Karma” singer made quite the splash with her recent cover of LadyGunn magazine—where she posed in a bejeweled chest plate and matching jock strap—revealing she drew inspiration for the photoshoot from another fashion-forward star.

“It’s like back in the day when Harry Styles wore a dress,” Siwa said on the Oct. 8 episode of Haliey Welch’s Talk Tuah podcast, referencing the “As It Was” singer’s 2020 Vogue magazine cover. "Obviously, wearing a bulge is a little different than wearing a dress.”

Still, the Dance Moms alum said she deliberately courted controversy with the head-turning photo spread.

“The stone bulge is—we were just giving a little spice, a little gender-bend, a little, ‘You can be anything you want to be,’” Siwa, 21, proclaimed. “It just was spicing myself up a little.”

“One thing about me is I like to be for the people that are different, the people who don't fit in and for the people who are just unafraid to take risks,” she continued. “And I feel like being that person, I have to go as far as I possibly can into the risk.”

Siwa’s comments echo the One Direction alum, whose Vogue cover made him the first solo male cover star in the magazine’s history. In the issue, he discussed his own gender-bending style, crediting other male artists who paved the way for him.

“The people that I looked up to in music—Prince and David Bowie and Elvis [Presley] and Freddie Mercury and Elton John—they're such showmen,” he told the mag. “As a kid it was completely mind-blowing. Now I'll put on something that feels really flamboyant, and I don't feel crazy wearing it.”

He continued, “When you take away, ‘There's clothes for men and there's clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play. I'll go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the women's clothes thinking they're amazing.”