Joe Jonas is getting candid about the mental health struggle that changed his life. On a recent episode of the Hey Jonas podcast with brothers Nick and Kevin, the 36-year-old singer opened up about how the failure of his first solo album, 2011’s Fastlife, sent him into a dark spiral and ultimately pushed him to seek therapy for the first time.
“I had about a year and a half to really focus on this album,” Joe recalled. “After the album came out and it didn’t really do much, I started reading the reviews, started seeing the reactions, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.” The Jonas Brothers had experienced massive success together, and Joe admitted he believed “everything we touch is going to take off.” When Fastlife failed to meet that expectation, he began to spiral.
He started experiencing panic attacks and physical pain, making frequent trips to the doctor for full-body checkups. “I would go to the doctor quite a bit and do like full body checkups and blood work,” he shared. The symptoms were so severe that his doctor eventually had to be direct. “One doctor finally just said to me, ‘Have you thought or spoken to a therapist?'” Joe recalled.
The realization led him to confront the “pain and trauma” he had created for himself. “It was weird that it stemmed from something as simple as, ‘Oh, the album didn’t do as well as I thought,'” he said. “I saw a headline like ‘failure,’ and I took that word and that was my identity with that album.” That first step into therapy proved to be “really life-changing” for him.
