Former child star JoJo who rose to fame at age 13 recounts how she became a sex addict hooked on drugs and booze

When JoJo Levesque, known just as JoJo to many, was skyrocketed into the spotlight at age 13 thanks to her wildly popular and record-breaking hit Leave (Get Out), it seemed as though she was on top of the world.

Her powerful singing voice, immeasurable talent, and clear stage presence at such a young age blew millions of people away – and quickly transformed her into a massive star.

Soon, her songs became pop anthems that young girls all across the world belted out in their rooms and her face was sprinkled across every teen magazine.

On the outside, it looked to the public like JoJo was as happy as could be. But she has now revealed that behind her picture perfect smile she was secretly plagued by immense insecurities and struggled to withstand the growing pressure that was put on her.

In her extremely honest new memoir, Over the Influence, which hits stands next Tuesday, JoJo, now 33, spoke in detail about the demons that she battled in secret.

She revealed that after participating in her first photoshoot at age 12 and seeing the images, she was so critical of her looks that she started self harming.

And JoJo said she became so used to ‘sucking in her stomach’ that she would often ‘feel faint while singing’ because she ‘wasn’t getting enough oxygen.’

Her problems were only made worse by her mother, a recovering addict who also acted as her manager.

As her career flourished, JoJo said her mom started to ‘deeply resent’ her, and would often go on viscous tirades against her.

Like many child stars, JoJo eventually descended on a downward spiral that saw her turn to alcohol and drugs to combat the years she spent feeling like she didn’t belong.

Things only got worse when her booming career came to a screeching halt amid ongoing legal problems with her label.

She fought tirelessly to release her third album, but the label kept delaying it, leaving her feeling once again like she wasn’t good enough.

The star tried everything to impress the record’s executives, even turning to pills to try to lose weight in the hopes that they would get behind her music again if she looked the part.

While her album sat in limbo, her incessant partying only got worse and, in her new memoir, she recalled getting ‘blackout drunk’ at important industry parties, driving while under the influence, and having sex with much older men to fuel a newfound obsession with ‘being desired.’

But through it all, JoJo stayed determined to return to music again and when she finally won a years-long battle against her label and was released from her contract, it changed everything.

She quickly turned her life around, overcoming ‘drug, alcohol, and sex addictions,’ and has since had a booming comeback.

Amid JoJo’s shocking new tome, FEMAIL has recounted her harrowing journey from start to finish.

Childhood marred by addiction: Both of JoJo’s parents struggled with drug and alcohol use

JoJo’s parents, Joel and Diana Levesque, both struggled with addiction, and had in fact met at an AA meeting.

For the first few years of her life, her mom and dad were embroiled in a viscous cycle of splitting and getting back together over and over again, which resulted in her ‘moving around’ quite a bit.

‘I don’t really have one particular image of a “childhood home” that immediately comes up for me,’ she admitted in the tome. 

She explained that her dad had a fierce temper that was fueled by his rampant drug addiction.

‘When he was in a good mood, he made me feel so safe and calm. When he wasn’t, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me, and I wondered if I had done something to make him change,’ she recalled.

‘When dad was good, he was my hero. But when he wasn’t good, it could be dangerous.’

Her parents split for good when she was five years old, and she and her mom settled in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

From a young age, it was clear that JoJo immediately had a fierce love of performing, and after her mom sent VHS tapes of her singing to all the TV networks, she was invited to perform on a slew of daytime talk shows.

Then, at only eight years old, Britney Spears offered her a recording contract after she sang for the Hit Me Baby One More Time songstress backstage at a concert and blew her away.

Her mom forced her to turn it down in the end because she felt she was ‘too young,’ but two years later, they decided to relocate to Los Angeles so that JoJo could pursue her dreams of becoming a star.

Soon after, JoJo caught the attention of longtime record producer Barry Hankerson, who signed her to his label Blackground Records.

At only 12 years old, she underwent intense ‘media training’ to prepare her to become a big star.

‘I had to learn how to conduct myself, how to make people like me. This was perfect because I had been trying to figure that one out since first grade,’ she explained. 

‘The media trainer was tasked with teaching me how to sound charming in sound bites and anticipate how I might deal with certain questions so that I wouldn’t accidentally offend anyone. 

‘Essentially, I was learning how to sell a product (myself!) to the widest possible audience. 

‘She would always call out whenever I was fidgety or tapping my foot, or using “likes” and “ums” and veering off topic. 

‘The goal was to make me the most easily acceptable version of myself. Not changing who I was, she stressed, just polishing it up for the world to see and connect with.’

She then started working on her first album, but the grueling process was not what she expected.

The rising star was forced to record for 10 hours a day and had to sing songs written for her rather than ones she had penned herself.

‘But I quickly adapted and accepted it as the way things were done in the big leagues,’ she added.

JoJo released her first single Leave (Get Out) in 2004 at age 13, and it was a massive success – transforming her into a huge star practically overnight. 

The hit went to number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, making her the youngest solo artist to have a number-one single in the US. 

Plagued by insecurities: JoJo was transformed into a huge star at age 13 but often felt like she didn’t belong

Despite the song’s popularity, JoJo confessed that she struggled immensely with feeling like she didn’t belong, especially due to her young age.

‘People were starting to pay attention and compliment me on my talent and original music, and yet whenever I went to shoots or industry events, I honestly felt just as ostracized as when I was in elementary school,’ she said in her book. 

‘It seemed like no one wanted to sit with me. Everyone for the most part was polite and kind, but what 17-to-21-year-old wants to hang out with a 13-year-old? 

‘It doesn’t really matter how mature that 13-year-old is – or thinks herself to be. She’s still 13.’ 

She said ‘self-doubt’ soon crept in – and after she did her first photoshoot, she started partaking in self harm.

She recalled looking at the images and feeling like an ‘alien.’

JoJo remembered thinking, ‘Was my forehead really that big? My nose that crooked and wide? My lips that small?’

‘I had never really seen myself like this before. It was like a twisted exaggeration of what the mirror reflected,’ the star said. 

‘And if people were seeing what I saw, why were they lying and saying I looked great?… These photographs seemed to confirm my fears that I would never look the part. 

‘The spiral was quick and rapturous. I went back to our hotel room and climbed into the bathroom sink, my bare feet flat against the empty basin, and started digging into my skin with mom’s tweezers in the mirror. 

‘Anxiety expanding with every breath, I couldn’t stop picking and squeezing the bumps on my skin until I bled, working all the undesirableness out of my pores.’ 

She embarked on her first tour and dropped her debut album, JoJo, in 2004, but as her career took off, she also had a hard time adjusting to her new, fast-paced lifestyle – while also yearning for more.

‘I felt the treadmill underneath my feet picking up and moving faster. Every day, there was a new schedule of interviews and obligations,’ she recalled.

‘Designers who wanted me to wear their clothing or attend their fashion show next season. I was living all the stuff I saw on TV. I lapped up all the drama and excitement like a kitten with milk. 

‘There were always so many people around me now: an ex–White House personnel bodyguard when I was in NYC, more folks from the labels, people trying to get me to take pictures with their products, my publicist nearby to tell them no, new producers who wanted to meet me, random folks who wanted to get a closer glimpse of the whole thing. 

‘It was all so much and yet I couldn’t get enough. How could we expand this further, get more, go higher?’

She said she became obsessed with trying to fill a ‘predisposed emptiness’ inside of her with ‘external validation.’

‘There was just nothing more thrilling than impressing the adults around me, nailing an audition for a show or talent competition, or hearing the roar of applause from a big audience,’ she said. 

‘No matter how “successful” I got, no matter how many songs hit the charts or movies performed well at the box office, my ghosts just got hungrier and hungrier.’

Forced to grow up: JoJo experimented with alcohol for the first time at 14 and lost her virginity that same year

Becoming a big star at such a young age meant JoJo had access to alcohol extremely early on.

She admitting in the book that she experimented with alcohol for the first time at age 14 while on her debut tour.

The singer said her dancers and crew would often party on the tour bus after shows, but she would ‘never get invited’ because she was ‘too young.’

Finally, she ‘snuck onto the bus’ one night and ‘asked the chillest dancer to make her a drink.’ 

‘Up until then, I’d only ever had sips of drinks here and there, but alcohol always tasted disgusting to me,’ she revealed. 

‘Seeing how relaxed and cool everyone looked on the bus, dancing and socializing without a care in the world, I wanted to get on their level. 

‘So the dancer poured me a red cup filled with Captain Morgan and CocaCola, and I was off. 

‘One minute, I was excitedly cheers-ing everyone… and the next thing I knew I was falling face-first out of the bus onto the carpet of the hotel’s entrance. My first blackout.’

She said her mom ‘picked her up off the ground and carried her lifeless body into her hotel room.’ 

‘I woke up in the middle of the night thinking the toilet was in the center of the room. It was very much not,’ she added.

‘I peed on the carpet, and mom and her [boyfriend] woke up to the sound of me relieving myself.’

She also lost her virginity that year to her then-boyfriend, soccer player Freddy Adu.

Afterwards, she longed to be treated like an adult, despite still only being 14 years old, and her relationship with her mom soon became ‘strained.’ 

‘I hated the idea of anyone treating me any differently than the real adults. It didn’t help that the power dynamics had already started shifting,’ she continued. 

‘I was now providing for both mom and myself. Plus, I wasn’t a virgin anymore. It irritated the s**t out of me that mom didn’t realize that she was in the presence of a woman now.

‘The closer I got to my 15th year, the further I pulled away from mom. I felt like she was always disapproving of something or mad at someone (often me), hating everything about the music industry and threatening to pull me out of it and make me go back to public school… 

‘I think, in many ways, she wanted it to stop, but felt we were in way too deep.’

She said her mom would often become volatile with her when she drank, which was becoming more often as JoJo’s career grew.

She recalled how her mom would launch blistering attacks against her, which left her feeling like she wasn’t good enough.

JoJo said her mom would tell her things like, ‘You’re acting like a disgusting, ungrateful, spoiled brat,’ and, ‘This industry has sucked all the goodness out of you.’ 

‘Vitriolic verbal jabs like these were increasingly common, and they hissed out of her mouth even more easily when she was under the influence,’ wrote the star. 

‘I knew she loved me. I never doubted that. But she also deeply resented – and possibly even hated – me now. I hated her, too.’

She said she once got into a physical fight with her mom in the lobby of a hotel, which resulted in them fiercely ‘shoving one another.’

And one time when she asked her mom to leave the studio whilst she was recording her second LP, her mom threatened to end her life.

JoJo said she received a series of harrowing texts from her mother that said she would be better off without her, worried, she rushed to her hotel room. 

‘The door to her room was locked and dead-bolted. I was banging and yelling through the wood that divided us,’ JoJo said. 

‘After what felt like a long time, she finally opened up and stood in front of me: naked, tiny, and soaked from tears. The bathwater was running and she had the hair dryer turned on.’

JoJo said she held her mom and ‘begged her to stay alive’ for a long time, and she ultimately calmed down.

All the while, JoJo’s career continued to soar. She starred in her first movie, Aquamarine, in 2006 alongside Emma Roberts and Sara Paxton, which was followed by the film RV starring Robin Williams later that year. 

Her second album, The High Road, dropped in October 2006, and it debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. 

JoJo’s alcohol and sex addictions: The singer began embracing the party lifestyle as her career came to a standstill

In 2008, JoJo moved to Boston and took a step back from the industry as she decided what she wanted to do next.

She contemplated leaving singing behind for good to instead go to college, but she ultimately decided to continue on with her music career.

She began to get to work on her third album, but unfortunately, soon found that she had lost momentum during her break.

And when the singer began to prepare for her comeback, she started to face immense pressure from her label to lose weight.

As a self-proclaimed ‘binge-eater,’ JoJo said she struggled to fit into the persona that they envisioned for her – and eventually started taking Adderall to try to curb her appetite.

‘It wasn’t uncommon for those in power [at the label] to be constantly critiquing their female artists’ looks and bodies and sex appeal,’ she stated.

‘I wanted to do whatever I could to get back on top, and if that meant trimming down, fine.

‘I’d heard Adderall could help me lose weight, so I added that into the mix using a friend’s prescription. 

‘I hadn’t deferred from college to settle. From now on I would do whatever they needed me to do if it meant I could get my train back on track.’ 

She recalled ‘staying in a constant state of sucking her stomach in.’

‘This was fine for looking slim from a side angle but not so good for proper breathing technique for a singer,’ she wrote.

‘I found myself not taking full, deep breaths onstage and sometimes feeling faint while singing because I simply wasn’t getting enough oxygen. 

‘No one had ever explicitly told me to do this; I’d just observed it as a thing to do and picked it up as a by-product of my own insecurities.

‘I fainted walking through the airport in Chicago [once] and woke up surrounded by security and doctors. 

‘Exhaustion? Stress? It was probably a mix of everything. It wouldn’t make news. No one cared.’ 

While JoJo said she didn’t drink much for years after the night she blacked out and peed on the carpet, she also started partying regularly after she turned 18.

‘I felt like I’d waited my whole life to be initiated into this adults-only club of liquid chill,’ she wrote.

‘Alcohol made me not give a f**k. Without it, I gave so many f**ks that it physically hurt. There was just no better free-er state than totally out of my mind.’ 

She also said she became addicted to ‘being desired’ by men, and dated a slew of sleazy, much older partners in quick succession who one by one broke her heart by cheating on her or treating her badly. 

She said sex became her ‘favorite outlet of escapism’ and would ‘dissolve all her worries and fear.’ 

‘I felt pretty self-conscious day to day and longed for male validation,’ she professed. ‘Being desired was like a drug to me.’

To make matters worse, JoJo’s third album kept getting delayed by the record label. 

Her partying became more and more frequent as she sat in limbo waiting to find out when her music would come out.

‘When my career stalled and it felt like everything I’d been working toward from childhood was going up in smoke, I turned elsewhere – to alcohol drugs, sex, love, food, self-loathing. It was never enough,’ she recalled.

‘The drinking helped dull down my emotions, and whether it was alcohol or weed, I stayed in an intoxicated state as much as possible, even during the day – which made me care less about everything.

‘But I continued the cycle, drinking to escape reality and then making decisions that were ultimately embarrassing (at best) or had horrible consequences (at worst).

‘Alcohol was quickly proving itself to be the perfect fuel whenever I needed to fill up my bottomless pit of insecurities and satiate my craving for validation.’

She recalled one time that she attended an industry party in December 2009 and got ‘unintentionally wasted in front of everyone.’

She said she was dancing wildly and ‘dropping it low’ and when suddenly, her ‘tight blue satin dress’ split ‘right up the center of the butt.’

She also admitted to driving while drunk, writing, ‘I’d be flying down the highway and start bawling my eyes out the second I saw a cross on the hillside… I was so scared and so sad. 

‘I’ve never had suicidal ideations, but at the same time, I felt like it might just be better if something happened and I was no longer alive. 

‘At least all of my music would be released into the world. I couldn’t see a light at the end of this tunnel. 

‘Oftentimes during those drives, I was totally blacked out, but the people around me said they couldn’t tell that I was even f**ked up.

‘Every time I made it home and didn’t injure or kill anyone (including myself), it was only by the grace of God.’

Turning her life around: JoJo eventually got professional help and was finally free to release music

After years of back and forth with the label, JoJo was able to release a single in August 2011, titled Disaster, and was invited to open up for Joe Jonas and Jay Sean on their tour.

Desperately yearning to get out there again, she then started releasing mixtapes on her own without her label.

Back to work, she soon realized she ‘needed professional help,’ and started seeing a therapist, who prescribed her antidepressants.

‘The guilt and tension that lived within me felt unbearable. Thankfully, as the Prozac took effect, the edge of those feelings dulled,’ she said.

She started going to church, got into yoga, and ‘spent months focusing on her health.’ 

‘I was getting really into working out and eating mindfully – juicing, yoga, Pilates, sweat lodges, intermittent fasting, adaptogen lattes, hormone-balancing tinctures… stuff that people back home looked at me like I had three heads when I brought up,’ she joked.

While her fans seemed ecstatic that she was back to releasing music, her label still kept delaying her third album. 

Frustrated, she filed a lawsuit against Blackground Records in 2013, claiming it had caused ‘irreparable damages to her professional career’ by not allowing her to drop her third LP.

In 2014, after a multi-year battle against the label, she was finally released from her contract and she signed with Atlantic Records. 

Almost immediately, she released a slew of singles and embarked on a tour, which was followed by the release of her third studio album Mad Love in October 2016. 

Her fourth album, Good to Know, came out in 2020. It was followed by her fifth, Trying Not to Think About It, in 2021.

In 2023, she made her Broadway debut in Moulin Rouge! The Musical, which she’s still starring in now.

And now, she’s released her new memoir in the hopes that sharing her story will stop other young stars from making the sane mistakes that she did.

‘What a ridiculously amazing life I have gotten to live. 20 years into my career, I feel more grateful than ever – but I also realize I have a lot more growing to do, across many different parts of my life,’ she concluded in the book. 

‘I hope to keep evolving in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. And I want to be of service to others along their journey and help them make sense of the pain and beauty of being a human in this world. Particularly in the music industry.

‘As much as I’ve made peace with the past, I still have traces of anger, resentment, and grief that linger in my body. 

‘And learning to accept this duality, and all that comes with it, is part of the healing, too.

‘I have great tools in my belt that I’ve picked up over the years. And I can forgive myself and others for decisions that have been made, while also rejecting a corrupt system that’s designed to profit off talented kids and then send them down the river when they are no longer down to play pretend.

‘As for what’s next? I’m actively dreaming about what that will look like and surrendering to the fact that it’s going to be different than I imagined. 

‘But one thing’s for sure. No more counting myself out. Matter of fact, for the foreseeable future – count me the f**k in.’