The Jonas Brothers recently made their way to Penn Badgley’s podcast, where the YOU star got them to spill some fun stories about their childhood crushes and first heartbreaks. While Kevin and Joe opened up about their first serious loves, one even writing a song about it, the other reflecting now that his daughter’s around that age, Nick had a different kind of story. Though he hesitated at first, he eventually gave in and revealed his two-part crush from when he was just 8 years old.
Nick Jonas opens up about his childhood crush
During the Podcrushed podcast, Nick recalled doing a theatre show called A Christmas Carol. “My first crush was kind of a two-part deal. It’s kind of embarrassing,” he said, referring to his early Broadway days. “I was around people who loved to sing and dance and tell stories for the first time, and I really felt like I belonged in this community. And specifically, one of my castmates named Lily…” he took a pause, before adding, “But I also had a crush on the child wrangler.”
For those unfamiliar with the term, he explained, “They’re the ones who run the set when parents can’t be around. They help with schoolwork and, you know, just make sure kids don’t die on set.” Even at 8, Nick said he was stressed that both Lily and the child wrangler might find out. So he did what any kid in a crisis would do, “tried to keep it cool.” He joked about being stuck in a “mini love triangle.” And while it sounds hilarious now, Nick admitted he was already anxious about coming off as “weird”, mostly because he was deep into music and theatre when most kids just weren’t. Nick then spoke about his first heartbreak, which he said happened when he was around 11 or 12. “It sort of, like, pushed me toward music as a way to process my very big feelings at like 10 or 11,” he admitted. “And I’m really grateful for that outlet because it’s turned out to be a good one.”
In the latter part of the podcast, the Sucker crooner opened up about his battle with type 1 diabetes, which began when he was just 13, something that’s become all too common in the West now. Nick recalled how he began “losing a ton of weight,” constantly drinking water and running to the bathroom. “All the signs now that I know are symptoms of type 1 diabetes,” he said. Back then, neither he nor his parents had a clue what was going on. “I just wasn’t feeling well and was losing all this weight,” he explained, calling it “a testament to the lack of information and awareness there was around type 1 at the time.”
