JoJo Siwa Reveals When She Realized She Had Feelings for Chris Hughes: ‘I Wasn’t Looking to Fall for Him’

JoJo Siwa wasn’t looking to find love on Celebrity Big Brother UK, but she did. And now that she and co-star Chris Hughes are officially dating, the dancer is opening up about how she realized he was the one for her.

Speaking to Gyles Brandreth on an episode of his Rosebud podcast posted Thursday, Siwa began by saying that “serendipity is Christopher and I’s favorite word now,” because “if you read the definition of it, it’s essentially finding love when you’re least looking for it.”

The Dance Moms alum went on to explain how her romance with the Love Island alum — the first few weeks of which played out in front of countless viewers as they both starred on the reality program’s 24th season — is the model of serendipity. “We just kind of bonded right away, and it started very much so as friends,” she explained, noting that the first things she noticed about her now-boyfriend was that he smelled good and was a “good hugger.”

“I wasn’t looking to fall for him, he wasn’t looking to fall for me,” she continued. “We’re having so much fun together, we’re having a laugh together. Whenever one of us was down, it was the other one that helped.”

Siwa and Hughes’ relationship is arguably the most memorable part of this Big Brother season, even though the couple didn’t get together until after it was over. While she was on the show, the “Karma” singer was dating Kath Ebbs, but they parted ways at the TV show’s wrap party.

On the podcast, Siwa appeared to touch on the breakup, telling Brandreth, “I had all these realizations in my life, things that I wasn’t happy [with], and things that I was being OK with that I should never have been OK with.

“I’m not happy, so I need to handle things, and I did very quickly once I got out of the house,” she added. “Over a little bit of time, I realized that I started to feel something for Christopher that I never intended to, but I couldn’t not feel. And I’m a very, very lucky girl because he was feeling the same thing.”

The interview comes just a few days after Hughes shared an intimate selfie of himself and Siwa cuddling in bed, after which the dancer told The Guardian newspaper, “It’s not platonic anymore, and it’s been a beautiful development, a beautiful connection, and I’m absolutely head-over-heels for him and he’s the same way.”

Siwa later gushed about her relationship in an interview with Billboard, also telling Tetris Kelly about what it’s been like to navigate a public relationship while identifying as queer. “It’s really hard because people tear it apart,” she said. “I’ve dated beautiful women, I’ve dated beautiful nonbinary people, I have dated men… but I realize that’s just who I am. I realize for myself that I just like humans.”