No edging, straight facts: JoJo Siwa went on Celebrity Big Brother 2025. She was dating Kath Ebbs at the time, an Australian actor, activist, podcaster, and influencer — they/them, don’t be a dick. JoJo was seen growing closer to Chris Hughes, another contestant best known for his time on Love Island and his more famous exes. JoJo came out as queer, rather than her previous sexual identity of lesbian. JoJo left the Big Brother house and breaks up with Kath at the afterparty — Alexa, play “party 4 u.”
Before the breakup, and especially since then, the online discourse surrounding Kath has been deafening. Everyone has opinions on Chris and JoJo, and Kath has been featured throughout the conversation despite having spoken out only once in a since-deleted TikTok. I’m a curious girlie, so I couldn’t stand for that. I wanted to hear about life in the eye of the social media hurricane.
When Kath Ebbs arrived for our interview in a ‘Professional Yapper’ sweatshirt, I knew we would get on — as I am literally a professional yapper by trade. They were nervous, and I couldn’t blame them. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t fancy discussing my breakup with a stranger, let alone thousands of strangers, on the internet — at least not before the tequila hits my system.
The nerves soon died down as we put that professional yapping to good use. The outcome of our conversation was that Kath definitely should be on Celebrity Big Brother 2026; they should play pickleball with Chris Hughes; we both are incredible at quoting Kris Jenner’s “What would happen if you just called Taylor up?” with Millennial glee — and that they’re having a rough fucking time of it.
Grab a knife and fork, let’s dig in.
Kath Ebbs On Their Breakup With JoJo Siwa
Kath describes the past weeks as the “most depressed I’ve been in six years, for real.” For someone whose profession revolves around putting themselves online and being a ray of sunshine for a marginalized community, that must be daunting for Kath.
“There have been so many times in the past month when I’ve thought about disappearing when this all feels way too overwhelming,” Kath admits. “The person who used to be my support system has not only vanished but turned against me and allowed this behavior to continue towards me. Everyone’s talking about me, but not to me. I feel voiceless, and that’s a really big trigger for me because of things that I’ve grown up with. People are calling me names. People are making assumptions about my character. And when you’re in it, it feels like it’s never going to go away.”
Breakups are always shitty — don’t come for me straights — but queer breakups are just another fucking level. Kath agrees with me (smirk) and says, “It’s like when a man breaks up with you, you can kind of compartmentalize it and be like, ‘Okay, okay, cool.’ When a woman does, you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m a terrible person.’ It becomes so personal. It’s strange.”
They also believe that the sapphic nature of the relationship plays into the media frenzy surrounding them right now. “I don’t know, I could be wrong, but my reflection for people is it because that person was in a sapphic relationship that you don’t see it having the same validity as a heterosexual straight couple.”
I have to agree with Kath there. I’ve never witnessed a celebrity breakup where the dumped individual has been on the tail end of so much vitriol. Kath has been photographed relentlessly and mocked in the comments.
“I’m telling you right now, if Chris Hughes had a girlfriend or if he was even just casually seeing someone on the outside and was acting like that, I don’t know what kind of conversation we would be having. I believe there is a small percentage of the conversation that is influenced by people’s either unconscious or conscious homophobia,” Kath says.
If JoJo had emotionally cheated on her male partner, would we have more sympathy for him? Would we have more anger for Chris if he were actually Christina and the other woman? Food for thought.
“People are constantly trying to diminish our experiences and our identity and the validity of our relationships,” they continue. “And I think that is kind of the product of that are people like you and me who grow up and go, ‘Hey, I just think she’s hot.’” I agree, as a fellow victim of the ‘everyone likes to kiss girls’ rhetoric.
“And I think if someone chooses not to use labels for whatever reason, that is fine, and that is their prerogative. But I also do want to say that labels have a purpose in society, and they are markers, and they’re really important to a lot of people in the community,” Kath explains.
Speaking of labels, this seemed like the perfect moment to ask Kath about their own experiences with people switching labels…aka when their ex JoJo Siwa went from L to Q, and everyone thought it was because she wanted to shag Chris Hughes…yeah, that little thing.
It’s easy to discuss sexual fluidity until it’s your partner on TV saying this stuff. Kath found those weeks fucking tough and almost wished the roles were reversed, and they were the ones locked in a house. Kath wants to make one thing clear: they don’t believe actual cheating happened. But that doesn’t mean this is okay.
“I think my boundaries were crossed in a way that felt like a betrayal of trust repeatedly around affection,” Kath clarifies. “I believe she made a lapse in judgment, and I was obviously collateral in that, and I wish that didn’t happen because it was incredibly hurtful. But I do not believe that she had malicious intent in that interaction.”
Kath previously shared in a TikTok that JoJo ended the relationship at the Celebrity Big Brother afterparty, although they don’t think it was planned that way. Kath arrived ready to still work on the relationship, with a selection of letters they had written detailing the boundaries that had been crossed in this onscreen friendship.
Although initially, Kath didn’t even view the relationship between Jojo and Chris with poor intentions. “I genuinely just thought that because of the Mickey Rourke thing, she had kind of trauma bonded a bit to Chris as he was the only one that stood up for her and didn’t gaslight her. So I thought that was a trauma bond that had kind of gone too far because of the environment in which they were in.”
They’re referring to Mickey’s homophobic comments to JoJo, which saw the former actor asked to leave the house (don’t let the door hit you on your way out!).
Kath has since deleted the TikTok at JoJo’s request: “She promised me if I deleted the TikTok video, she would no longer talk about me. And she didn’t hold up that promise.” Kath reached out to JoJo to ask about this and has yet to receive a response at the time of publication.
“I feel a bit like I’ve been this pawn that’s been moved around in this story by Big Brother, by JoJo, by her PR team, by the tabloids,” Kath admits. “And I feel really beaten around by that because it’s just not something I asked for. And I think at the end of the day, the boring headline is: I’m just heartbroken, and I’ve just gone through a really messy breakup that I didn’t see coming, and I’m in shock, and I’m picking up the pieces of my love life and of my life in that.”
They hadn’t left the house in two days when we spoke, but they’re getting through each day. They’re line dancing to bring themselves joy (see their socials for the cutest videos), opening up to people, and just trying to heal. They feel for everyone else going through breakups, and when I call it a “microdose of grief,” they correct me that it’s actually a “macrodose of grief.”
They would know, as they lost their ex-partner and close friend, Jaaden Abraham, and frequently share heartwarming messages about grief on their Instagram. The anniversary of Jaaden’s death occurred during those weeks in the Big Brother house, and before JoJo went in, she was concerned with ensuring Kath would be supported for that tough time. “I was dealing with the anniversary period of Jaaden, and my dad had just had a stroke. The conversations that we had were more to do with how I was going to be supported and by whom while she was away because she was such a big support system in my life.”
Who Is Kath Ebbs Outside Of The Media Frenzy?
If I didn’t know it before, I do now: Kath Ebbs should not be known as just JoJo Siwa’s ex. They deserve more than that. They didn’t trash-talk JoJo like I would’ve my ex (you know what you did!!). And yet, fun fact: Kath Ebbs doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. Neither do I, but then again, I have yet to date anyone who was on Dance Moms. But despite the lack of a Wikipedia page, Kath Ebbs has a massive online presence. They’ve been in the influencing game for over a decade before we even cleverly coined the term ‘influencers.’
They were initially one of those Tumblr influencers we LOVED to reblog and idolize, and have since gravitated towards Instagram, TikTok, and the pod booth. They host the podcast I’ve Always Said That with fellow influencer Carmen Azzopardi, and you can expect to hear even more juicy stuff on it very soon.
While Kath is known for their authenticity, when I ask how much of themselves is truly put on the little screen, they admit, “Maybe 35-40% of me.” They’ve learned to differentiate between what to share and keep for themselves, although they admit this is a boundary they’re always working on. “I feel like the word influencer gets a really bad rap, and I have a personal opinion that that’s kind of laced in maybe a little bit of misogyny,” Kath adds.
Kath was also the first non-binary character on an Australian soap. Their character, Asher Nesmith, had a rough time with things on Neighbours, but it was revolutionary for folks watching back home. Kath recognized what a big deal this was at the time, and it was definitely a lot of pressure. “I understood the gravity of what I was being asked to do in terms of as a queer person representing the queer community and representing the genderqueer community. I held that responsibility really close to my heart, and that felt more important to me in a weird way than the actual work of an actor.” In case anyone from the show is reading, Kath is super down to make a comeback as Asher and give them the happy ending they deserve!
I ask whether they get tired. Like the world is shit, and they’re here spearheading queer Australia. Kath grins and considers their answer. “The feeling of fulfillment I get in the work that I do overrides the exhaustion I feel from being an online person.”
