The Jonas Brothers have spoken about the uncomfortable questions about their sex life that they dealt with as teenagers (Picture: Scott Gries/Getty Images)
Joe Jonas has opened up about the uncomfortable questions the Jonas Brothers were asked during their purity ring-wearing youth.
In the early 2000s, the whiter than white band proudly wore purity rings and were open about their Christian roots, with their father, Kevin Jonas Sr, working as a senior pastor at Wyckoff Assembly of God.
The band was coming to fame in the noughties, just afew years after Britney being asked if she was a virgin, and there was a countdown to the day Natalie Portman turned 18 and was officially an adult.
When the group was first signed by Disney in 2005, they were still touting their rings and maintaining their squeaky clean image.
Despite being just teenagers, the rings invited curiosity from reporters, with Joe admitting that the questions about their sex life were frequent – and incredibly uncomfortable.
‘Famously, we were known for like purity rings, which were something in the community of the church where that was like what everybody else in our age were doing around 10, 11 years old, like, “we’re going to wait for the right person”,’ said Joe while appearing on Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed podcast.
‘One person on an interview when you’re 15, 16 [years old] would ask you about it, and you’re like: “I don’t want to talk about this,” and then they’re like: “Well, I’m going to write that you guys are in a cult”. And you’re like “I guess we’ll talk about it.”‘
The brothers starred in Camp Rock and their own Disney show Jonas (Picture: Gregory Pace/BEI/Shutterstock)
The band has been open about the discomfort in their interviews (Picture: AP)
He added that the reporters even asked the stars about their faith and other big questions that, as teens, they were ill-equipped to answer.
‘Whether it was sex, or it was even religion or Christianity, [they’d be] questioning things like questioning if I believe in God, what is God? Is there even a God? And it’s on the record.
‘And you’re like, uh … and so you felt the pressure, I can definitely speak for all three of us here. [We] felt the pressure of being like: ‘Well, we have to live these lives because we kind of said it in a paper once. And it’s in print, so you gotta do it forever”. So it would be scary and freak it out until we were like f**k this, or more likely “frick this”.’
Nick added that thankfully, those questions aren’t directed at young stars today: ‘It would be so outside of the realms of possibility to ask at the time a 14-year-old about their sex life.’
Just a few years after the Jonas Brothers came Justin Bieber, a squeaky clean 15-year-old singer who was persistently asked inappropriate questions. Many were about him being a heartthrob, but many overstepped the line with one female radio host asking him to give her ‘the sex talk’.
‘I really, I feel uncomfortable right now. Why do you want to know the sex talk from a 15-year-old boy? That’s pretty weird,’ said Justin in 2009.
In 2010, One Direction came to fame and were bombarded with questions about their love and sex life. With the youngest in the group, Harry Styles asked about his alleged preference for older women constantly.
The brothers are all in their 30s now (Picture: by Gary Gershoff/Getty Images)
This isn’t the first time that the brothers have spoken about the difficult time in their band’s history.
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything forum in March 2016, Nick said that he found it ‘very tough’ to have his name attached to the purity story.
‘I’ve got a lot of perspective and real care about sex from those days, and specifically because people were watching us, because it was such a strange thing to a lot of people to wear these purity rings, especially as young men in a pop boy band.
‘But I think when I’m looking back on it, although it was challenging to live with that, to be seen and have that attached to our name was very tough.
‘I think it was a good thing. It gave me a really good perspective, to whereas now my main thing is about being OK with who I am as a man and the choices I’ve made, and I think everyone should have a good and solid conversation with either their parents or loved ones about sex and about what they want to do with their life, because it shouldn’t be taboo.
‘It’s a big part of who we are and what makes us human, and if we can’t address these things head on, then I think that it can really be challenging.’
Nick also told The Guardian in 2019: ‘It was very tough to digest it in real time, trying to understand what it was going to mean to me, and what I wanted my choices to be, while having the media speaking about a 13-year-old’s sex life.
‘I don’t know if it would fly in this day and age. Very strange.’
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