Nick Jonas opened up about how his faith was tested after being “betrayed” by his longtime church and losing his family’s home during his early rise to fame.
When Nick, 33, and his brothers Kevin, 38, and Joe, 36, first began pursuing music careers in the early 2000s, their father, Kevin Jonas Sr., was the senior pastor at the Wyckoff Assembly of God church in Wyckoff, New Jersey.
Shortly after the trio formed the boy band the Jonas Brothers and signed with Columbia Records in 2005, Kevin Sr. was effectively forced to resign from his pastoral role and the family had to move out of their church-owned home.
During a recent appearance on the “Jay Shetty Podcast,” Nick reflected on the circumstances behind his family’s departure from their church and how it marked a turning point in his faith and personal life.
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“Our dad was at that church for 10 years,” he said. “It was a real safety net for us and a place where we felt a part of a community.”
“Some of the families that were there prior to our arrival did not like my dad and made it their mission to get him pushed out of the church,” Jonas recalled. “So effectively, he lost his job while also funding this dream of ours.”
“We had to move out of our home because we were living in the church parsonage, which is owned by the church,” he explained. “We moved into basically a little house in a place called Little Falls, New Jersey. The owners of the home were kind enough to let us rent it from them for basically nothing while we were in this transitional period.”
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Nick recalled that at around the same time, the Jonas Brothers had embarked on a small high-school tour in New Jersey to promote their music. During this period, the “Levels” singer said that he began to experience health issues, and he was eventually diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
“We would show up at 8 a.m., load in our own gear, and play a 30-minute assembly,” he said. “Around this time, I’m starting to lose weight. I’m thirsty all the time. I’m using the bathroom all the time. I kind of just thought it was a growth spurt or that I was just going through puberty. Obviously, it wasn’t that. It was a diabetes diagnosis.”
Additionally, Nick revealed that his family was facing enormous financial strain at the time. In 2006, the Jonas Brothers released their debut album “It’s About Time” but Columbia Records declined to continue their deal with the band after the record failed to meet sales expectations.
“We got dropped after our first album came out and we were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, credit card debt, money that we did not have because there’s no money in in ministry really,” he said. “We had to sort of figure something out.”
Nick admitted that he began to experience doubts about his faith due to the convergence of his personal and professional challenges, along with feeling abandoned by his church.
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“It all kind of collided at the same time, and you look up and life just looked very different,” Nick recalled. “It took a lot of faith, and even questioning faith at that time, going from the safety net of the church to all of a sudden being sort of betrayed by them and having to redefine your relationship with God while going through some of your toughest moments.”
However, the Jonas Brothers’ fortunes began to change when they were signed by another major label in 2007.
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“Thankfully, we got a call from Hollywood Records, which is, you know, under the Disney umbrella,” he said. “And a couple weeks later, they had us on the Disney Channel, and things just started going.”
Looking back, Nick explained that though he struggled with institutional religion after leaving his former church, he didn’t lose his belief in God, and he believes that working through those questions ultimately helped him grow.
“Throughout those years following our exit from the church, I really questioned faith and what relationship I would have to organized religion at all, which is something that I can say now knowing that my relationship with my God is totally intact and that my belief is totally intact,” he said.
“And I think it’s important for everyone to go on that journey of self-discovery.”
