JoJo Siwa is "craving" a wedding to Chris Hughes

Speaking on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast, she said: "I'm happy. I've never wanted the future so bad.

"I've never, ever wanted the love that I have to just continue to grow.

"I've never protected a love that I have so much. I've never cared about another person so much.

"I've never craved a wedding. I've always wanted to just like go sign a piece of paper or go to Vegas 'cause I didn't wanna have a wedding but now I'm like, 'No, I want a ring and I want my Dad to walk me down the aisle and I wanna first dance and I want butterflies.'... I'm happy."

But the 22-year-old star - who previously came out as pansexual and now identifies as queer - admitted she had experienced a "brutal" backlash from the LGBTQ+ community after falling in love with a man following a number of public same-sex romances.

She said: "It is hard because it feels like my own family has turned a little bit. And I think we are the LGBTQIA+ family, not the LG community and it's a beautiful rainbow and the number one saying of the queer community is love is love.

"And that goes both ways... just because I am in a heterosexual relationship that doesn't discredit my past...

"Women holding hands, women cuddling together in public, I see them see me and I see them laugh, I see them point, I see them roll their eyes. Now I see them come up to me and take a photo and run away. I see them flip me off while I'm driving. I see them.

"Someone the other day came and stood outside my studio with the middle finger up for about two minutes, and then just walked away from within the queer community.

"That to me has made me be so aware, I guess, of how brutal hate can be and how brutal bullying can be from outside the community and from within, inside the community. I think people need to watch it because I can take it, but other people can't and that's tough."

While JoJo insisted she doesn't care about the backlash, she is concerned about how the way she is treated will impact on other young people.

She said: "I think older people in the community need to realise the way that you treat me in this situation doesn't affect me, I promise, at all. I'm very happy. I'm very loved. I give a lot of love. I'm feeling very loved. I am in a great place.

"Who it is affecting is the people who are years younger than me seeing what you're saying about me.

" So now if you were a 22 right now and said, 'I liked girls,' but then all of a sudden, this boy comes into your life and you think 'Well I can't do that 'cause these people told her [JoJo] she can't, so now I can't switch, I can't change your mind, I can't fall in love.' That's where the problem is.

"It doesn't affect me, but it affects the people that are not me that see the bullying.

" I think people need to be cautious about the words, and that's not just with sexuality, that's not just with me and my sexuality and my relationship, that's with everything."

For the full podcast interview, visit http://hyperurl.co/i4yxt0

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