Our icons-on-icons scrapbook just gained a new entry. Groundbreaking multi-hyphenated and “Orange Is the New Black” star Laverne Cox was hosting E!’s red carpet coverage of the People’s Choice Awards on Tuesday night when who should shimmy up to the mic but teen mogul and “Dancing With the Stars” runner-up JoJo Siwa. The hair-bow icon was nominated for Best Competition Contestant — an honor which she won, of course — so we should have been more prepared for this legendary meeting. But alas, we were not.
The young star has since embraced her position as a wildly popular role model, consistently using her platform to encourage and uplift LGBTQ+ youth. Siwa made history on “Dancing With the Stars” this season as one half of the first same-sex couple to compete on the long-running competition show. She and her dance partner Jenna Johnson won the first perfect score of the season and ultimately placed second overall. Cox said to Siwa “Can I just start by saying, I’m so proud of you. Forty years ago, it was illegal for two women to dance together in public, and two men to dance together,” Cox noted. “That was part of why the Stonewall rebellion happened.”
