OH, BROTHER

Boy Band Member Burned by Fans for Being ‘Trump Supporter’

The youngest Jonas brother ticked off quite a few fans with his latest social media comment.

Christian boy band member Nick Jonas expressed what appeared to be mild support for the world’s richest man—and Donald Trump’s shadow president—Elon Musk. And the Jonas Brothers’ mostly female fan base is outraged that this could mean he’s a not-so-secret Trump supporter.

As Musk taunted naysayers who told him getting into politics would be bad for business, he tweeted a GIF of the Jonas Brothers flipping a table, with the caption, “My, how the tables have turned” in response to another user’s tweet noting that “Tesla is up 100% since Donald Trump won!”

Jonas reposted Musk’s tweet with the message, “Take us to the Year 3000,” a reference to one of the boy band’s early hits. That’s when things started to go wrong for the singer with social media users.

“They’re quiet during the election and then do something like this when enough time has passed,” wrote one user, “Every time.” Another fan of the Jonases “since 2005” wrote that she “just cannot give my support to this,” because the singer had been “noticeably quiet during the entire election cycle” before “tweeting something like this.” She added, “We’re not just gonna move on from this btw.”

The Daily Beast reached out to Nick Jonas to inquire whether he supports Musk and/or Trump, but did not receive an immediate reply.

The Jonas Brothers boy band burst onto the scene to swoon young female fans in the early 2000s and is made up of brothers Nick, Joe, and Kevin. They’ve been mostly silent about their political affiliations in their 20 years in the spotlight, but Nick did express support for Biden after his 2020 presidential win.

The now 32-year-old Jonas has also touted the idea of running for president himself one day. In an appearance on The View in 2011, he told the hosts that “2040″ would be his year to go for it. He didn’t deny his desire to run for president when he was asked as part of a Guardian profile in 2019: “Politics is a very tricky thing,” he said then, “It’s a very different time to when I first mentioned my desire to be president.”

The internet’s memory is short, however. And even so, Jonas’ political opinions may have changed since 2020—a sentiment his primarily female fans don’t seem very comfortable with.

Some users were more cynical, with one writing, “People acting shocked about this development as if the Jonas Brothers aren’t just three non-college-educated white evangelical men from New Jersey, like, statistically the most likely demographic to buy into Trump-Musk’s whole deal.”

Others decided not to rush to judgment about Jonas’ post, tweeting, “I feel like y’all are reaching, he’s just replying because Elon used a Jonas brothers gif.” They added, “Now how did we get to him being republican and trumpie based on one interaction?” But most of the chatter is determined to condemn the pop star.

As the blowback built, the youngest Jonas turned his tweeting fingers toward an upcoming New Year’s Eve performance on “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve,” sharing a promo in the midst of being hounded over his Musk post. That didn’t stall the online chatter, however, as some users perceived the repost as a way to appear “unbothered.”

Eboni Boykin-PattersonEntertainment Reporter

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