Ah, the Jonas Brothers, those teen heartthrobs that sent screaming fans into a crazy tailspin in the mid-2000s with their good looks and sweet songs.
Brothers Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas took on the fame like pros, becoming one of Disney's hottest commodities with their Disney Channel shows and movies, and making chart-topping hit music. They were everywhere, and the pop-culture world just could not get enough of them.
But when they decided to stop making music as a band in 2013, fans were devastated. It left many broken hearts in its path, including their own. What happened?
Joe Jonas, in particular, has been very open about his experiences. He gave a very in-depth and candid interview to Vulture magazine in 2013, in which he shared his thoughts on being a Jonas Brother, working in the Disney bubble, the aftermath of the Jones Brothers split – and gave some insight scoop on his very public romances with some high-profile starlets. His younger bro, Nick, has also had his fair share of headline-making activity, while Kevin has pretty much kept a lower profile since the brothers stopped making music together.
Here are 19 Secrets No One Knew About the Jonas Brothers.
THEY DIDN'T LIKE THE ORIGINAL BAND NAME
Get this, the Jonas Brothers were originally called J3, a name that thankfully didn't stick for very long. Joe told Vulture they were excited about going on their first concert tour in 2006 with their album It's About Time. Joe said, “We were working on it for so long, and our dad had to drive us to the recording studio in the city every day,” but calling themselves J3 just felt like a “boy band” name, and the brothers were definitely not into it.
Joe explained, “We hated the name... I remember turning to my brothers before that show and saying, 'Do you want our name to be J3 for the rest of our lives?' When we got onstage, I was the one to announce to the crowd, 'Hey, we’re the Jonas Brothers.' Nice and simple.” Definitely an improvement.
THE BAND BREAK-UP WAS ROUGHER THAN YOU THINK
As hard as it was for their fans to accept it, when the boys decided in 2013 they couldn't be a band anymore, it was even hard on the brothers. Nick was the one who first brought up the idea of splitting up, and Joe admitted he didn't want to hear it.
"The fight got loud. I was screaming,” Joe told Vulture. “When Nick presented the idea of closing a chapter and moving on, I freaked out," Joe said. "I didn't know whether to pick up and leave or just punch something because I was furious. I'd spent so long working with my brothers on this band, and in my mind, it felt like we were just giving up. It didn't make sense to me. But once I started peeling back the layers, I understood. There were a lot of dysfunctional things going on."
THEY NEEDED THERAPY TO DEAL WITH IT
Nick later talked about how he regretted being famous and working with his brothers at such a young age (he was 12 when they started). In a 2016 Tidal documentary, the singer said, “There were probably some family issues that needed to be sorted out. At some point, I need to be able to look at it with a positive angle.” He said he ended up seeking therapy to deal with it.
As did Joe, who answered a Reddit AMA follower in 2016 about the rumors on the band's break-up. “I was seeing a therapist and I wasn’t on speaking terms with my brothers... And maybe I was a little envious of Nick because I knew that he already had kind of a leg up and had plans to work on music already, and he was creating and producing... I just had to stop and figure out what's next.”
PUNK ROCK DREAMS SQUASHED
The middle Jonas brother also talked about how he loved punk-rock music when he was younger. Even though he was a pastor's kid, that kind of music really appealed to him. "I preferred going to punk-rock shows in small venues in New Jersey,” he told Vulture. "That’s how I fell in love with music, how I became obsessed with it. I’d stand there, watching the singer running around the stage, owning the crowd. I didn’t even notice whatever else was happening onstage. All I could see was the singer."
Joe even admitted he recorded a solo album that never “saw the light of day.” He explained it “was kind of Hall & Oates–y. Had a Freddie Mercury vibe (he’s one of my biggest influences),” but the record label nixed it. “They said the songs were too weird and sounded like demos.”
DISNEY FORCED THE BROTHERS TO BE PURE
Working within the Disney machine proved to be very taxing for the three brothers because they always had to be on their best behavior. Joe told Vulture, “We didn't want to disappoint anyone — our parents, our fans, our employers — so we put incredible pressure on ourselves, the kind of pressure that no teenager should be under.”
The whole squeaky-clean image hurt the creative direction of the group. Joe said. "If a lyric was slightly [adult], someone at the record company would tell us we had to change it. It could be the most innocent reference, like 'I'm alone in a room with you,' and it would have to go. It felt like we couldn't be creative, so we stopped listening to them and just started handing sh** in."
JOE BROKE HIS VOW
The boys did wear “purity rings,” which meant they would wait until marriage, but they eventually took them off. Joe admitted in that 2016 Reddit AMA that he broke his vow at 20, when he was dating Twilight star Ashley Greene.
Then he went into great detail about how it went down.
“It's quite the great story because I didn't have any [prophylactic], so I went to our drummer Jack's room, who was my roommate at the time and I demolished his room looking for them. Found them underneath his underwear drawer. When he came home, he thought somebody broke into his room because his whole room was demolished because I was in dire need. Needed to happen then and now. Safety first, kids.”
JOE TRIED SUBSTANCES WITH DISNEY CHANNEL STARS
Joe also confessed he smoked illegal ubstances for the first time when he was about 17 – and he toked up with his Disney Channel cohorts, Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.
Jonas said, “They kept saying, 'Try it! Try it!' so I gave it a shot, and it was all right. I don’t even smoke... that often anymore.” He added he also “was caught drinking when I was 16 or 17, and I thought the world was going to collapse. But I was in another country, and it was legal there.”
Finally, on his 21st birthday, he got really drunk – and fell down some stairs. “I was unconscious that time, and my whole team was scared to death that somebody was going to get a picture.”
JOE FELT STUCK DATING DEMI LOVATO
Speaking of Demi Lovato, out of all of Joe's relationships, he felt bad about this one. He knew it meant a lot to their Disney Channel's Camp Rock fans that he and Lovato were an item. He did love Demi as a friend, but he couldn't go beyond that.
They only dated for about a month.
“I really got to know her and got to see the ins and outs of what she was struggling with, like [substance] abuse,” Joe explained to Vulture. “I felt like I needed to take care of her, but at the same time I was living a lie, because I wasn’t happy but felt like I had to stay in it for her because she needed help. I couldn’t express any of that, of course, because I had a brand to protect.”
NICK'S AWKWARD DATE WITH SELENA GOMEZ
Naturally, Joe wasn't the only one with problems dating Disney Channel princesses. The younger Jonas brother also went on a date with Selena Gomez, and it didn't go so well.
Nick talked BBC Radio 1 earlier this year and recounted the story about going on a date with Gomez in Central Park, her first time to the famed NYC park. “She was unhappy that her Central Park experience was ruined by the fact that I walked about 20 feet away from her even though they were taking pictures of us and obviously we were there together. I was like, ‘It’d be better if we stood about 25 feet apart. So it ruined her Central Park experience”
Gomez appeared in Nick Jonas's music video for "Burnin' Up" and later called their relationship, "like puppy love, you know, it was very sweet.”
JOE'S DEAL WITH TAYLOR SWIFT AND GIGI HADID
Back to Joe's love life. The Jonas also dated Taylor Swift for a brief time but apparently dumped her over the phone in a less than 30 seconds conversation to start dating Camilla Belle.
That is how Swift remembered it went down, but Joe later said in a 2008 My Space post (remember My Space?) that the conversation was abruptly cut-off because “someone else” ended it. “Phone calls can only last as long as the person on the other end of the line is willing to talk.”
The relationship with Belle didn't work out either, and Joe eventually started dating one of Swift's besties, Gigi Hadid, in 2015. This time, it looks like Hadid did the breaking up after dating Joe for about five months (she found love with current boyfriend Zayn Malik). How did Joe take it? He apparently wrote a revenge song for his band DNCE.
JOE HAS DEFINITELY DATED FANS
Come on, can you blame the guy? The singer admitted the girl fans were pretty plentiful back in the day, and there were times he went for it.
Telling Vulture, “Yes, I’ve dated fans. I can’t say that I’ve never put a foot in that world; there were times when I definitely took advantage of the opportunities I had.”
He recalled, “I remember I invited a fan to a movie, and we just made out the entire time.. I must have been 16 or so. Afterward, I was kind of freaking out, because I thought she’d go public and the whole world would find out. Luckily, she never did, I think because she assumed there’d be another meet-up down the road.” There wasn't.
Note: Joe has finally settled down and is now engaged to marry Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner.
DEMI LOVATO TOLD NICK TO DUMP OLIVIA CUOPO
Nick has followed brother Joe's pattern of dating higher profile women, including his two-year relationship with former Miss Universe Olivia Cuopo.
The two split in 2015, but according to Nick's good friend and touring mate Demi Lovato, it was a good thing. She told Billboard in 2016, “He’s a guy in his 20s... Listen, even when he was in a relationship, I was like, ‘Get out of that. You could [have] anybody that you want right now, so have fun and do that.”
Lovato added, “Honestly, I didn’t like her anyway. It’s not because she’s mean or anything, but he has such a great sense of humor and I want him to be with someone that makes him laugh. I can tell if something’s up because he’ll close off.”
Note: Nick's love life is still making news, but he's currently single.
7. JONAS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SHOW
Their sitcom Jonas was originally supposed to be centered on the boys playing secret agents. The title was to have been rendered "J.O.N.A.S." for "Junior Operatives Networking As Spies.” Now, that would have been interesting.
The show was delayed, however, because of the 2007-08 writers strike, and when it went back into production, the premise changed to fit in with other Disney Channel shows like Hannah Montana and Sonny With a Chance.
Joe said the show just further amplified how they had to continue being Disney-fied. “The thing about the show was that some of the writing on it was terrible. It just ended up being some weird slapstick humor that only a 10-year-old would laugh at. They took out the kissing scene that Nick had. I had to shave every day because they wanted me to pretend like I was 16 when I was 20.”
THE JONAS FAMILY LEFT THEIR CHURCH OVER MONEY
When they were young, the Jonas family split with their church over an incident – and it affected Joe for years after. He said, “We eventually left our church, Assembly of God, when I was 14. A scandal had erupted involving stolen money, and it caused a big rift in the church. After that, the concept of church really upset me for a long time.”
Yet, the brothers brand was very Christian and they felt obligations to that. “If I ever didn’t want to go to church on Sunday, or when I was trying to figure out what religion I wanted to be, or trying to understand spirituality, I would always have to deal with knowing that people were looking up to me,” explained Joe to Vulture. “I mean, I believe in God, and that’s a personal relationship that I have, but I’m not religious in any way.”
KEVIN QUIT THE ENTERTAINMENT BIZ
As the mature one, oldest brother Kevin seemed to be the most stable with the band's break-up and his personal life. No rumors of him dating other Disney Channel actresses or pop starlets, and instead he settled down early, marrying Danielle Deleasa in 2009. The two now have two daughters.
Although after the band split, he and Danielle did a reality TV series Married to Jonas, Kevin pretty much stepped out of the limelight and away from the music industry. Kevin is now the co-CEO, with Steven Forkosh, of The Blu Market, which is an influencer marketing company. He also formed a strategic partnership with We Heart It, a video-sharing app, to help build their network of 45 million members.
Kevin told Forbes, “I’ve always had a passion for the tech industry and I like to help build interesting products.”
KEVIN'S WIFE SUFFERS FROM ANXIETY
Danielle Jonas doesn't really want the limelight either. On their reality show, it was revealed Danielle suffers from crippling anxiety issues and takes medication for it, but being married to a former heartthrob gets to her. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to being in the limelight with Kevin,” she once said on the show. “People call me a gold digger and say I’m ugly. It’s hard.”
She also struggled to fit into the Jonas family, especially with matriarch Denise Jonas. When the couple was first engaged, Dani bent over backward to impress her future mother-in-law, who was admittedly a little hard on her son's fianceé at first. Their exchanges were documented on the show, but it seems the two finally found a comfortable relationship. Having two grandchildren to dote on also helps.
THE YOUNGEST BROTHER WAS BUSTED FOR POSSESSION
Yes, there is a fourth Jonas brother and his name is Frankie. Naturally, he was way too young to join the band back in the day, but the kid brother still found ways to get his name in the headlines.
In 2016, the then 16-year-old often referred as the "Bonus Jonas," was cited for possession by police in Nashville, Tennessee but was not arrested. Kids.
After making appearances in his brothers’ flicks, including Camp Rock 2, Frankie lent his voice to animated films, including Ponyo, but he has stayed relatively under the radar. In an interview with Paper magazine in 2015, he was getting ready to graduate and move "far, far away.” He’s also a huge Always Sunny in Philadelphia fan.
KEVIN TESTIFIES ON FIFA CORRUPTION
Chalk this one up to totally being random. In the 2017 FIFA corruption/bribery scandal, prosecutors wanted to establish a timeline with one of the perpetrators, a Paraguayan official named Juan Angel Napout, who is accused of money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud.
According to Sports Illustrated, Napout's lawyers apparently denied that a Paul McCartney concert in Buenos Aires in 2010 ever took place, but Kevin Jonas was called in to testify that he attended that very concert, so it indeed happened.
Apparently, the Jonas Brothers played a show there two days later, and being that they were in Argentina, they went to see McCartney. "He was performing, we got invited," Jonas said, per Buzzfeed News' Ken Bensinger. "Any time you get to see Paul McCartney, it's pretty special."
THEIR FATHER'S CANCER BATTLE
The Jonas patriarch, Kevin Jonas Sr., battled colon cancer but is now in remission.
The news was revealed by Nick last year. Speaking to iHeartRadio, Nick said, "My father just had a journey with colon cancer and he's cancer-free now, or on the tail end of it, all is good. Being here with him when he went in to have his tumor removed was a really special thing and really important.”
Nick added that when the diagnosis came through, his family came together in support. "I had a lot of things on my schedule, but I said, 'I'm going to be here with you and walk through this with you and the family”... to be able to be there with him, be a unit as a family, is something I think, we should be really proud of."
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