Anyone who thinks 33 is too young to write a memoir should just pick up a copy of Over the Influence by Joanna “JoJo” Levesque. The singer-songwriter has lived a lot of life since her debut single, “Leave (Get Out),” dropped 20 years ago. And when she decided to lay it all out in unsparing detail across 300-plus pages, Levesque even surprised herself with how candid she got.
“Human beings are designed to share and connect and relate, and I realized how many stories I had held close to the chest and people I’d protected out of fear or shame for so long,” she tells Vogue. “I withheld names or gave out a couple aliases so as not to be salacious, while still sharing my truth. But that first draft that only I saw, though….”
For anyone who came of age in the early aughts, when Levesque first broke out, the book teems with nostalgic touchpoints. She details how badly she didn’t want “Leave (Get Out)” to be her debut single, calling the hit “some Disney Channel shit.” She also recounts the time she co-hosted Total Request Live and had a nasty experience with an unnamed pop diva (who may or may not be C*ristina A*uilera…).
So, too, does Levesque examine her complicated relationship with her parents and her struggles with alcohol addiction and substance abuse. Reading through the various personal and professional hurdles she’s had to navigate—her former record label blocking the release of any new music for over a decade, the death of her father from an opioid overdose, one romantic betrayal after another—it’s clear how lucky Levesque feels to still be here, releasing music. The memoir, as well as her stunning new single “Porcelain,” are both testaments to her uncommon resilience—and her refusal to let anyone dictate how she uses her one-of-a-kind voice.
“Revisiting some devastating moments that I had compartmentalized actually felt cathartic and necessary. I didn’t realize how much I had tried to avoid feeling,” Levesque reflects. “Pretty much all my fears, insecurities, and shortcomings are now out there, so they now have no more power.”
To celebrate the release of Over the Influence, Levesque took six days off from her starring role in Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway to stop by six bookstores across the country—and shared some exclusive snaps with Vogue from her life on the road.