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 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.
'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.'
'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.'