JoJo Siwa’s Vintage ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ Makeover Has People Asking If the ‘Trad Wife’ Pipeline Is Real
JoJo Siwa is in her retro era — and TikTok has some questions. Specifically: when did the once-rainbow-clad queer icon enter the trad wife pipeline?
Last week, the 22-year-old shared a TikTok of her singing the 1981 Kim Carnes hit in full vintage glam, down to a curled blonde wig and raspy, fried vocals. “Should I drop it on Spotify?” she asked in the caption. What followed was a frenzy of reactions — some nostalgic, others deeply confused.
The confusion comes in part from context. Siwa has performed the song live before, and during at least one recent concert, she changed the lyric from “She’s got Bette Davis Eyes” to “Chris Hughes’ Eyes” — a not-so-subtle shoutout to her boyfriend, Love Island alum Chris Hughes, whom she met on Celebrity Big Brother UK this spring. The couple confirmed their relationship in June, with the Dance Moms alum calling it her first with a man since coming out as queer. Chris, for his part, has already floated the idea of marriage.
But while Siwa’s fans have followed her through many transformations, this one is hitting differently — and not necessarily in a good way. Comments under her TikTok quickly devolved into a debate about whether JoJo, once a loud and proud Gen Z queer icon, is now serving “trad wife cosplay.” “Never thought I’d see the day where JoJo Siwa gets a boyfriend and becomes a trad wife,” one user wrote. Others called the aesthetic shift “deeply unserious” and “algorithm bait.”
Then Kim Carnes seemed to weigh in. Two days after JoJo’s TikTok went up, Carnes posted a clip from her 1981 music video with a pointed caption: “There is a difference between singing a song… and embodying it. I’ve always believed authenticity is what makes music timeless.” She didn’t mention JoJo by name in the since-deleted clip, but the timing — and tone — said enough.
And for those keeping score: “Bette Davis Eyes” wasn’t originally Carnes’ song. It was written by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, who first recorded it in 1974 as a soft folk ballad. Carnes’ synthy 1981 version made it a hit — and won her a Grammy.
And this isn’t happening in a vacuum. Influencers like Courtney Palmer — the self-described “housewife princess” — have gone viral in recent weeks for promoting a lifestyle where softness, submission, and strategic silence are framed as empowerment. Like JoJo, these creators often package their content in a dreamy, feminine aesthetic that blurs the line between self-expression and algorithm-optimized tradition.
To be clear: wanting softness, love, or even a glamorous boyfriend serenade doesn’t make someone regressive. But when a certain kind of womanhood keeps going viral — one that’s quiet, pretty, and palatable — it’s worth asking what we’re celebrating. And who we’re leaving out.
Before you go, click here to see all the celebrities who have talked about being bisexual, sexually fluid, pansexual, or queer.