Nick Jonas’s worst nightmare became a reality during a 2016 performance with Kelsea Ballerini, and he hasn’t quite let go of the embarrassment he felt. On May 22, the Jonas Brothers sat down for an interview on Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard, and Nick got deep about how his flub eventually landed him in therapy.
Back in 2016, three years post-JoBro breakup, Jonas was invited to perform at the Academy of Country Music Awards with Ballerini. While the two were singing Ballerini’s hit “Peter Pan,” he made a mistake that threw off his whole performance. “There was another time during a really tragic guitar solo debacle that happened on live TV,” he said. “I started off, it was fine, and as I walked toward her, I just went completely blank, and I hit a wrong note and blacked out basically and clocked that it was wrong and I couldn’t stop.”
Nick Jonas and Kelsea Ballerini perform onstage during the 51st Academy of Country Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, 2016.Kevin Winter/ACM2016/Getty Images
Jonas says he was whisked away immediately after the performance and on a plane in the blink of an eye. “I looked at my manager and said, ‘I think that was bad.’ I was, like, in shock kinda,” he said. “It was a really traumatic moment that shaped the pressure I put on myself to be perfect and to always be on.”
Seven years later, Jonas still thinks about it. “In retrospect, I can kind of laugh about how big I thought it was,” he said. “But it did travel more than I wish it would have, and it did cause me to go to therapy.”
Thankfully, Ballerini didn’t notice a thing. “It was awesome. It was my first big kid award show performance and I was so excited to do ‘Peter Pan,’” she told People immediately after the show back in 2016. “It’s my favorite song I’ve gotten to release so far, and then to be able to share it with Nick—who is one of my favorite artists since I was like 12—it was just super cool.”
