‘Tragic’ Kelsea Ballerini Duet Put Me in Therapy

He’s solely human! Nick Jonas revealed how a duet with Kelsea Ballerini on the Academy of Country Music Awards in 2016 turned his all-time “worst moment” on stage. 

“A really tragic guitar solo debacle … happened on live TV,” Jonas, 30, recalled throughout the Monday, May 22, episode of “Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard” of the occasion, the place he joined the nation star, 29, 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.”

The twosome — who had beforehand had a “couple performances together,” based on the “Levels” singer — had been there to carry out Ballerini’s hit single “Peter Pan” off her debut report, The First Time.  

“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.”

Jonas made headlines instantly following the flub, with followers taking to social media to poke enjoyable on the musician for his mishap. Some social media customers even made tutorials on play the improper model on the guitar. The New Jersey native, nevertheless, tried his greatest to answer the jokes with good humor. 

“Just landed in London to all these posts from Sunday nights performance,” he tweeted on the time. “So funny. Yes, I screwed up the solo thanks to a huge brain fart.” The JoBro then adopted up his publish with a fan-made web page of sheet music with the inaccurate 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 informed host Dax Shepard he nonetheless “can’t really figure out exactly what happened” to trigger the error, including that he was “rushed to a plane” proper after the incident with little time to course of what occurred. 

“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. 

While Jonas might look again on the 2016 ACMs with remorse, Ballerini doesn’t maintain it in opposition to him. The Rolling Up the Welcome Mat songstress opened for the Jonas Brothers on their Remember This Tour in 2021 and even duetted the “Waffle House” artist’s 2016 single “Close” throughout the present. 

“I’m a huge fan of him. I was a huge Jonas Brothers fan, unapologetically, when I was 12 or 13. His solo stuff is just incredible and it was really cool to collaborate with him on the awards. I’d totally do more with him if I could,” Ballerini informed The Hollywood Reporter in 2016 following the ACMs, noting that Jonas “eased her nerves” on stage throughout her first large awards present. “I thought, ‘If I mess up, he has me.’ It kind of eased my nerves a bit. He’s such a sweet dude. We’ve known each other for a year, so it wasn’t a weird, ‘Hey, I’m Kelsea. Hi, thanks for singing.’ It was a little more casual, which was good.”