JoJo Recalls Going to Taylor Swift’s House with Selena Gomez and Thinking Everyone ‘Felt Bad for Me’ (Exclusive)

JoJo Recalls Going to Taylor Swift’s House with Selena Gomez and Thinking Everyone ‘Felt Bad for Me’ (Exclusive)

In an exclusive excerpt from JoJo’s upcoming memoir, ‘Over the Influence,’ she writes about finding support in Gomez during a period of career uncertainty

Joanna “JoJo” Levesque is opening up about her life and career in her debut memoir, Over the Influence
The “Leave (Get Out)” musician writes about a years-long period in which she was unable to officially release music due to issues with her former record label
In an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE, Levesque writes about becoming friends with Selena Gomez during the time of uncertainty and attending a Galentine’s Day party at Taylor Swift’s house
During a period of career uncertainty, Joanna “JoJo” Levesque found support in a friendship with Selena Gomez.
Two decades after rising to fame as a tween with the hit 2004 song “Leave (Get Out),” Levesque is looking back on her life and career so far in her debut memoir, Over the Influence, out Sept. 17, including a years-long period where she was unable to officially release music.

“My whole twenties were just a s—show of confusion,” the 33-year-old performer tells PEOPLE, reflecting on a time where her former label, Blackground Records, did not have a steady distribution deal in place to properly put out music. The label, however, still had the rights to her recorded voice under a contract signed when she was 12 years old.

Joanna “JoJo” Levesque in November 2023.

Fed up with career setbacks that were out of her control, Levesque released two free mixtapes — 2010’s Can’t Take That Away from Me and 2012’s Agapé — online to satiate fans’ hunger for new music, as well as her own desire to share art with the world.

At the same time, she remained at the mercy of the record label, obliging their requests to mold her into a marketable star in hopes of once again putting out music commercially and returning to the heights of her early fame.