JoJo Siwa revealed that hours before she performed Friday at the Mall of America, she went to the hospital in “excruciating pain” and learned she had a burst ovarian cyst.
“If you follow along closely with my life, you know that yesterday was a bit hectic,” the singer and dancer said in a TikTok posted Saturday.
The 22-year-old entertainer said she experienced stomach pain whenever she moved in the days leading up to her Black Friday performance. On the day of the concert, the pain was so severe, she couldn’t breathe. Taking a bath only made it worse, and it got to the point where she started blacking out and believing she was about to throw up. Still naked from the bath, Siwa said she couldn’t even move to put on clothes. That’s when her mom called 911.
“When I said [to call 911], instinctually, [my mom] was like, ‘Whoa, something’s really wrong,’ because I’m a very, very tough girl,” Siwa said.
She got dressed and paramedics took her to the hospital, where she got medication for her pain that provided relief.
“That was lovely,” Siwa said. “I started to feel great. I was dancing in the hospital bed. I was feeling much, much better once the pain meds kicked in.”
An ultrasound revealed that a cyst on one of her ovaries had burst and was bleeding into her stomach. The burst ovarian cyst “should resolve itself,” she said, but she’ll get re-examined in a week.
“Basically, the story is like, just try to keep it calm, and I was like, ‘Right, I’ll try to keep it calm in a second,’” Siwa said. “I gotta go do this little shindig quick.”
She continued: “It’s basically just excruciating pain, but the good news is we know what it is and I think that brought a lot of peace of mind to me. Now I know what the pain is.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, most ovarian cysts cause little to no discomfort and go away on their own with no treatment. But if one bursts, it can cause bleeding inside the pelvis. “Vigorous activity” can increase the risk of a burst.
Siwa said the paramedics who took her to the hospital told her the emergency room wait was 12 hours, but the doctors and nurses who helped her moved quickly — she was in and out in just a few hours.
She jokingly theorized that maybe some of the people in her care team had daughters attending her show.
“It was incredible,” Siwa said. “They worked so fast.”
