Nick Jonas Says His Disastrous 2016 ACM Performance Sent Him to Therapy

The 2023 ACM Awards recently showcased an incredible duet with pop star Ed Sheeran and country singer Luke Combs. While this performance went off without a hitch, back in 2016, another pop star wasn’t as lucky.

If you recall, Nick Jonas appeared on the broadcast with Kelsea Ballerini to perform her song “Peter Pan’ and flubbed his guitar solo in front of millions.

During a recent appearance on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, Nick opened up about the moment saying, “Kelsea and I had a couple performances together, and this was one of them. I come out for my thing. I’ve rehearsed it a million times. I’m feeling really confident about it, not even really thinking about it like it’s a thing that’s going to be problematic.”

“I started off, it’s fine and as I sort of walked towards 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.

“To this day and hours of unpacking it, I can’t really figure out exactly what happened, he continued. “But I was rushed into a car, right to a plane right after and I looked at my manager and said, ‘I think that was bad.’ I was, like, in shock kinda. It was a really traumatic moment that shaped the pressure I put on myself to be perfect and to always be on.”

“In retrospect, I can kind of laugh about how big I thought it was,” he added. “But it did travel more than I wish it would have, and it did cause me to go to therapy.”

Here’s the moment. Warning…If you’re somebody who gets secondhand embarrassment, you may want to skip watching this video.

DFree/Shutterstock

Share

Instagram

Facebook