Why Nick Jonas’ 2016 ACM Awards performance sent him to therapy

Nick Jonas says that while he can now laugh about his off-key performance at the 2016 ACM Awards, the incident affected him for longer than he wishes it did.

The 30-year-old appeared on Monday’s episode of ‘Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard’ with brothers Kevin and Joe, and talked about the viral guitar solo that went wrong during Kelsea Ballerini’s performance of ‘Peter Pan’.

The youngest member of the Jonas Brothers talked openly about the incident, and revealed that it even sent him to therapy.

“Then there was another time during a really tragic guitar solo debacle that happened on live TV,” he told Dax Shepard.

“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.

“Kelsea and I had a couple performances together, and this was one of them. 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.

“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.”

The performance took place during the Jonas Brothers’ years-long break before they decided to reunite in 2019.

Nick explained that it has played into the expectations he’s had for years whenever he takes the stage.

“Til this day and hours after unpacking it, I can’t really figure out exactly what happened but I was rushed to a car and rushed to a plane right after it and I looked at my manager and said, ‘I think that was bad’,” he said.

“I was, like, in shock kinda. Like it was a really traumatic moment that shaped the pressure I put on myself to be perfect and to always be on.”