Smoking weed with Miley Cyrus, losing of his virginity at 20 and dating Demi Lovato while she was abusing drugs, Joe Jones put it all on the table in an opened and candid piece for New York Magazine.
Former boy band singer opened up in an essay titled "Joe Jonas: My Life As a Jonas Brother," which chronicles his life from being one third of the Jonas Brothers to his experimentation with drugs and growing up under the Disney umbrella.
"Disney is great at creating fame," Jonas wrote. "They've done it with so many pop stars and young actors, from Hilary Duff to the 'High School Musical' crew. Miley Cyrus played an already-famous pop star on a Disney show, 'Hannah Montana', and as we were starting to blow up, we got a boost by playing ourselves, as her favorite band on her own show."
The Jonas brothers were given their own show on the children's network in which they played characters named Kevin, Joe, and Nick Lucas, members of an already-famous band.
Jonas said being about of the Disney life for so long made him "not want to be this perfect little puppet forever." In Jonas' opinion the scripts were too watered down to appeal to a younger generation and sometimes terrible.
"I had to shave every day because they wanted me to pretend like I was 16 when I was 20 (when the show was done, I cut my hair off and grew as much of a beard as I could)," he wrote. "We went along with it at the time, because we thought Disney was our only real shot, and we were terrified that it could all be taken away from us at any moment."
Jonas admitted to being in the company's office when the Vanessa Hudgens nude photo scandal occurred and heard the actress was locked in their offices while executives tried to figure out how to supposedly keep control of the actress.
"We'd hear execs talking about it, and they would tell us that they were so proud of us for not making the same mistakes, which made us feel like we couldn't ever mess up," Jonas said. "We didn't want to disappoint anyone-our parents, our fans, our employers-so we put incredible pressure on ourselves, the kind of pressure that no teenager should be under.
"Disney made us more famous than we ever knew we could be."
Eventually, the former boy band singer said he hit his limit and just wanted to show people that he was his own person. The three brothers were known for wearing promise rings, vowing to keep from having sex until marriage, but the brothers had to "sugarcoat" their real lives for the press.
"Because of our age, because of Disney, because of those rings, there were so many things throughout our career that we had to sugarcoat," he said. "If a lyric was slightly sexual, someone at the record company would tell us we had to change it. It could be the most innocent reference, like 'I'm alone in a room with you,' and it would have to go."
Jonas said it was never the band's intention to champion abstinence before marriage. The brothers collectively decided to take the rings off a few years ago.
"I lost my virginity when I was 20," Jonas said. "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.'"
Jonas said his relationship with 21-year-old Lovato meant a lot to the fans. The couple only dated for a month. Jonas recalled an incident when Lovato punched a young woman on the plane because she thought she was being blamed for something.
"I really got to know her and got to see the ins and outs of what she was struggling with, like drug abuse," he said. "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."
Jonas admitted to reportedly trying marijuana for the first time with Lovato and Cyrus.
"The first time I smoked weed was with Demi and Miley," he said. "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," he said. "I don't even smoke weed that often anymore."
The Jonas Brother announced their break-up in October after almost 10 years together. Jonas said he's excited to move on with his life and finally take charge of his own career.
"Now that I'm 24 and have control of my life, I'm going back to the drawing board," he wrote. "I've been through a s--t-ton of stuff, but I'm genuinely excited because now I can go back to the studio with those people who I used to work with. I don't have to rely on anyone else's opinion, whether good or bad, and hear them say, 'No, no, you can't go write with them.'"
