In a surprisingly candid interview with Vulture, former Disney star Joe Jonas opened up about losing his virginity, struggling with his religious beliefs and smoking pot for the first time with Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.
“I must have been 17 or 18. They kept saying, ‘Try it! Try it! so I gave it a shot, and it was all right,” middle Jonas brother said.
Ever since the Jonas Brothers announced their break up, there have been rumors that Joe is struggling with serious drug abuse. He didn’t talk about those specific accusations with Vulture, but said he doesn’t “even smoke weed that often anymore.”
To some extent, Joe’s actions still seem influenced by his years with Disney.
“I 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. My 21st birthday, I fell down a flight of stairs. I was unconscious that time, and my whole team was scared to death that somebody was going to get a picture. Now I appreciate wine or a vodka-soda at the end of the day every once in a while.”
Joe also spoke about the purity rings that he and his brothers famously wore.
“It started when I was really young — I must have been 10 or 11. There’s a program people do in some churches called True Love Waits, where you wait for marriage to have sex. Kevin and I decided to join — Nick tried it later. Fast-forward a few years, we’ve started playing music and we’re working with Disney and we have these rings,” Joe said, explaining people jumped to conclusions. “We decided to take the rings off a few years ago. I lost my virginity when I was 20. 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 batshit crazy. I’m glad I didn’t go there.'”
Joe spoke about his relationship with Ashley Greene (whom he dated when he was 20), but admitted it was his one-month fling with Demi Lovato that attracted the most attention.
“I really got to know her and got to see the ins and outs of what she was struggling with, like drug abuse. 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.”
For her part, Demi’s been pretty open about her struggles ever since leaving treatment for self-harm and an eating disorder. Most recently, she spoke with Nylon about how she rationalized partying before she was of age.
“My mentality was ‘Work hard, play hard,'” she said for the new issue. “It was hard to listen to the word ‘no.’ I wanted to make my own rules. I thought that if I was adult enough to get there, then I could party like an adult. And obviously, I couldn’t.”
