Already reeling from the break-up of the Jonas Brothers, fans of the pop group were shocked when middle brother Joe Jonas penned a tell-all essay earlier this month. Now, the musician has offered an explanation for the revealing confession: he needed to do it for himself.
“I’ve heard quite a few positive reactions and a couple negative,” the musician recently told Radio.com. “But for me, it’s fine. I wrote this for myself.”
The essay, published in the Dec. 9 issue of New York magazine, offered up detailed look at what it was like growing up in the Disney pop machine. Jonas discussed trying to deal with fame at a young age, admitted to first smoking pot with Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato when he was 17 and, perhaps most stunning of all, opened up about his love life.
Jonas, who along with his siblings, was known for wearing a promise ring, confessed to having had an active sex life while still in the band.
“I lost my virginity when I was 20,” he wrote. “I did other stuff before then, but I was sexually active at 20. I’m glad I waited for the right person, because you look back and you go, ‘That girl was bats–t crazy. I’m glad I didn’t go there.”
The musician also wrote about his much-talked about relationship with fellow teen star Lovato.
“I really got to know her and got to see the ins and outs of what she was struggling with, like drug abuse,” he wrote. “I felt 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.”
Earlier this month, Jonas expressed some regret for the essay, saying that he perhaps should have chosen his words more carefully, especially in regards to what he wrote about Lovato.
But as he’s now made clear, Jonas whole-heartedly believes his was a story that had to be told.