Nick Jonas reveals he went to therapy after a 2016 performance

If you don’t happen to remember the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards well, don’t worry: Nick Jonas remembers. The Jonas Brothers band member recalls the performance as “tragic,” leading him to seek therapy afterward.

In 2016 Nick Jonas performed at the Academy of Country Music Awards with country singer Kelsea Ballerini. He joined Ballerini for a performance of her 2015 hit ‘Peter Pan’ with an offkey guitar solo.

A tragic guitar solo on live TV

“A really tragic guitar solo debacle … happened on live TV,” Jonas recalled during the Monday, May 22, episode of ‘Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard’ of the event, where he joined the country star for a duet. “In retrospect, I can kind of laugh about how big I thought it was. But it did travel more than I wish it would have, and it did cause me to go to therapy.”

This wasn’t the first time the duo had performed together. However, it was the first time they were performing ‘Peter Pan’ together.

“I come out for my thing. I 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,” he continued. “I started off, it was fine and as I 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.”

Following the performance, Jonas made headlines for his mishap. Some social media users even made tutorials on how to play the wrong version on the guitar.

Having a sense of humor

The New Jersey native tried his best to respond to the jokes and headlines with a sense of humor.

“Just landed in London to all these posts from Sunday nights performance,” he tweeted at the time. “So funny. Yes, I screwed up the solo thanks to a huge brain fart.” The Jonas Brother then followed up his post with a fan-made page of sheet music with the incorrect notes, writing, “We’re all human and s**t happens sometimes, but whoever made this is a genius.”

Revisiting it years later, the ‘Camp Rock’ star told host Dax Shepard he still “can’t really figure out exactly what happened” to cause the error, adding that he was “rushed to a plane” right after the incident with little time to process what happened.

“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,” he shared.

Thankfully, the 2016 performance didn’t hinder the musician’s relationship with Ballerini. The songstress opened for the Jonas Brothers on their Remember This Tour in 2021 and even duetted the Jonas’ 2016 single ‘Close’ during the show.