Trending 29th July 2016 by Paula Lyne
‘I Was Injecting Myself’: JoJo’s Teenage Weight Loss Regime Was Scarily Extreme
She says her record company wanted her to 'lose weight FAST.'
JoJo became something of a role model for us Noughties teens when her single Leave (Get Out) first dropped back in 2004.
There she was, just 14 years of age, telling her man to eff right off like a total boss. Amazing.
However underneath her kick-ass persona, JoJo says her life was lived under the thumb of her record company bosses. The same bosses who would eventually tie her up in all kinds of contract law drama, stall her future album releases, and prevent her from putting her music on Spotify, FYI.
One of the biggest regrets she has? Allowing them to put her on an extreme weight loss regime which included injecting herself with hormones that allowed her body to survive on fewer calories.
“Here’s something that I agreed to do that ended up messing with me psychologically,” she explained in a video interview with Kirbie Johnson for POPSUGAR.
“I was under a lot of pressure with a company I was at previously and they wanted me to lose weight fast.
“So they got me with a nutritionist and had me, like, on all these supplements, and I was injecting myself – this is a common thing ‘the girls’ do all the way – it makes your body only need certain calories, so I ate 500 calories a day.”
Unsurprisingly, the singer gained the weight back after stopping crash dieting, and says that the whole regime was by far “the most unhealthy thing I’ve ever done.”
These days, JoJo’s looking far healthier AND she has a new album on the way with another record company. Her approach these days? Doing what’s right for her, and her alone.
“I listen to other people’s opinions. Listening and following are different things,” she says. “What you think about yourself and the decisions you make is what’s most important.”