Joe Jonas Opens Up About Fatherhood and Co-Parenting With Sophie Turner: ‘They’ve Really Given Me the Reason to Be Alive’

There is something quietly striking about a man who once stood at the center of one of Hollywood’s most publicized custody battles now describing his ex-wife as part of his healing.

That is exactly where Joe Jonas finds himself in June 2026, not bitter, not performatively unbothered, but genuinely, vocally grateful. And his two daughters, Willa and Delphine, are at the center of all of it.

On the June 2 episode of the Jonas Brothers’ iHeartRadio podcast Hey Jonas!, Jonas reflected on raising his two daughters and how becoming a parent has changed his perspective on life.

What came out of that conversation wasn’t the careful, PR-scrubbed version of a celebrity talking point.

It was something rawer, more personal, and for anyone who watched the messy unraveling of his marriage to Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner back in 2023, it was a lot to sit with.

‘They’ve Really Given Me the Reason to Be Alive’

Jonas was responding to a listener who had called in with a question about the most “healing” part of becoming parents for the Jonas Brothers. It was the kind of question that could have yielded something polished and forgettable. Instead, Jonas got real.

“I’m a single dad, and I co-parent with my children’s mother,” he said. “And so I think my children have given me purpose again in my life. I think having them, the reason I do what I do now… You go to work, our work, it happens to be that we’re grateful that it’s what we love so much.

But also, knowing that I get to work hard if I’m not with them and go back to my shared time where I get to be with them, it makes it so much better to work that much harder.”

He did not stop there. “They’ve really given me the reason to be alive,” he continued. “I would say, you know, I think in my saddest moments, I’m able to be reminded quickly that a hug from them can solve the world’s problems in my own world, and I know I’m not hyper unique.”

That last part, I know I’m not hyper unique, is what separates this from the average celebrity soundbite. Jonas, 36, acknowledged that millions of people navigate single parenthood and co-parenting arrangements every day.

He acknowledged that there are “a lot of people in his situation that are single parents and go through this,” before turning the spotlight back to the thing that keeps him grounded.

“I’m grateful that I have a co-parent that I can balance even the bad days with,” he said.

Jonas shares daughters Willa, 5, and Delphine, 3, with Sophie Turner. While both parents have largely kept their children out of the spotlight, the singer occasionally offers rare glimpses into how becoming a father has changed him both personally and professionally.

From Courtrooms to Co-Parenting Goals: How We Got Here

For context, the warm tone of Jonas’s podcast comments would have seemed almost unimaginable just a few years ago.

In early September 2023, fans were shocked by a report that Jonas had consulted divorce lawyers after “serious problems” with their marriage.

Two days later, the pop star officially filed for divorce, sparking a wave of internet backlash, pointed paparazzi walks, and a contentious custody battle.

Things escalated quickly. Turner alleged that the breakdown of their marriage happened “very suddenly” after an argument in August 2023, and that she learned about the divorce filing “through the media.”

In one of the more dramatic turns of the entire saga, Turner’s legal documents stated that Jonas had possession of the children’s passports and refused to return them, or to send the children home to England with their mother.

Jonas and Turner were married for four years before news of their split broke. What followed was months of mediation, legal filings, and the kind of public back-and-forth that neither party could fully contain.

Their divorce was finalized on September 10, 2024, almost a year after Jonas’s original filing. Miami-Dade County Judge Gina Beovides declared that the marriage was “irretrievably broken,” and approved the couple’s agreement, noting that their parenting plan was in the best interest of the family.

The terms of the settlement were kept confidential, but the shift in tone between the two parents was anything but subtle.

A source told People that the ex-couple had “decided to focus on what’s best for their girls” after the “difficult” divorce. “They turned things around from the initial messy custody battle,” the source said. “They are friendly and great co-parents now.”

That trajectory has only continued. When Jonas released his album Music for People Who Believe in Love in May 2025, Turner shared a link on her Instagram Stories with the caption “Go go @joejonas.” Small gesture, but the symbolism was not lost on anyone who had been following the story.

Jonas Has Said It Before… and He Keeps Meaning It

The Hey Jonas! episode was not the first time Jonas had publicly given Turner her flowers.

In May 2025, during a live recording of Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, Shetty asked Jonas about raising kids in today’s world and the values he hopes to pass on. Jonas started by crediting Turner.

“I have a beautiful co-parenting relationship that I’m really grateful for,” he said. “Having an incredible mom, Sophie, for those girls is like a dream come true.”

He also spoke about what he wants his daughters to carry into adulthood. “As young girls, looking up to great women is what I want for them,” he said.

“I think what values I want for them are to be open-minded and have a big heart, be able to walk into any room and feel confident, and know that they can do literally anything they want.”

A source close to the situation described the current dynamic to People in terms that match what Jonas has been saying publicly. “There’s a mutual respect now, and the girls are their priority,” the source said.

“Joe and Sophie have hit a surprisingly peaceful groove, and they’ve maintained an amicable relationship from two continents, which isn’t easy, but they’ve managed to pull it off.”

And according to a separate source cited by InStyle, the ex-couple have “gotten into a co-parenting rhythm that really works,” and have “figured out how to communicate.”

What Jonas is describing on podcasts, it seems, is consistent with what those close to both parties are seeing in practice.

Maybe Parents Ain’t Heroes Afterall… Just Humans

There is a version of this story that leans hard into the redemption arc… the pop star who had it all, lost his marriage in the glare of the public eye, and found his footing again through his kids. That version isn’t wrong, exactly. But it might be too tidy.

What Jonas is actually describing is messier and more human than a redemption arc: the ongoing, low-glamour, logistically demanding work of being a present parent when you are no longer with the person you built your family with.

The fact that he speaks about it with this much sincerity, naming his ex-wife by name, calling her incredible, crediting her publicly on a podcast while his brothers are sitting right there, is nothing.

Willa is 5. Delphine is 3. They are, by all accounts, the reason their father shows up to work harder and gets through his hardest days. And for now, their parents appear to be on the same page about what matters most.