JoJo Siwa recently reflected on her public back and forth with Candace Cameron Bure after she called the “Full House” star the “rudest celebrity she’d ever met” in a TikTok video last year. On a recent appearance on the “Viall Files” podcast, Siwa recalled the alleged incident that led her to give Bure that title. According to Siwa, the interaction took place when she was 10 or 11 and attended the premiere of “Fuller House.” She asked Bure to pose for a picture with her, but the actress told her “Not right now.”
Siwa said on the podcast, “And I was like, ‘OK, fine. Like, no worries. I was sad. I loved [Bure’s character D.J.] on the show, but whatever, fine.” She continued, “I walked away, went back over to my mom. And I turned around, and she was taking pictures with other kids. And just as a little kid that just like stuck with me. You know what I mean? It was just kind of one of those things that if somebody was to ask me that question [about the rudest celebrity she has ever met], that would be my answer.” After the clip spread across the internet, Siwa and Bure had other public exchanges and appeared to have resolved their differences.
However, Siwa later called out Bure again regarding the actress’s comments about “traditional marriage” in a press release and a Wall Street Journal interview. Bure, the chief creative officer for the faith-based Great American Familly channel, sparked backlash after saying the network’s Christmas programming “will keep traditional marriage at the core.” Siwa, who came out as an LGBTQIA community member in 2021, said Bure’s remarks were “rude” and “hurtful.”
While on the podcast, Siwa said she wished Bure “was able to be a little more open, more accepting.” She added, referencing her TikTok video, “I’m OK with calling her out in the way I did.” Siwa continued, “For a while, I regretted it. But after I found that article about her not wanting anything to do with LGBTQIA, that’s my people. And I’ve got to stand up for my people. And that’s messed up.”
Siwa explained that she didn’t object to Bure’s goal of emphasizing traditional marriage in Great American Family’s Christmas movies. In Bure’s WSJ interview, she was asked if the network would feature same-sex couples as leads, and Bure replied, “I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core.”
Siwa noted, “You should do a movie with traditional marriage, with a man to a woman. Not that that is what should be traditional marriage, but it is traditional marriage. You know what I mean? Like, a lot of the times, people are like, ‘That shouldn’t be traditional marriage. Anything can be traditional marriage.’ But typically speaking, man-to-woman marriage is traditional.”
During the “Viall Files” podcast, a portion of Bure’s WSJ interview about switching networks was also read to Siwa. In April 2022, Bure surprised fans when she announced that she was leaving Hallmark Media to develop, produce and star in projects for Great American Family. For over a decade, the “Full House” alum was a mainstay on the Hallmark Channel, starring in 30 movies, including 10 holiday films.
“My heart wants to tell stories that have more meaning and purpose and depth behind them,” Bure said at the time. “I knew that the people behind Great American Family were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment.”
Siwa explained to podcast host and “The Bachelor” alum Nick Viall she took issue with that particular quote from Bure’s interview and shared how she viewed Bure’s remark. Siwa said, “It wasn’t that she wanted to do a movie about that. It’s that she wants to do a movie about that to put down LGBTQIA and that she was specifically going to make movies that had no representation of LGBTQIA, which is fine if you are doing it because it’s just your movie’s storyline and it’s just it is what it is.”
After Bure’s comments sparked backlash in November, she issued a statement: “All of you who know me know beyond question that I have great love and affection for all people. It absolutely breaks my heart that anyone would ever think I intentionally would want to offend and hurt anyone.”
Siwa said she’s come to terms with the fact that she and Bure will likely never see eye to eye, saying, “I’m never going to be able to change her. She’s not going to be able to change me. We can both just live life. We can just both have fun.”