Nick Jonas reflects on his diabetes diagnosis at age 13: 'I didn’t really know of anybody in the public eye who was living with it'

Nick Jonas is reflecting on his type 1 diabetes diagnosis.

The “Jealous” singer, who received the Golden Glove award from the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation on Wednesday for his diabetes advocacy, spoke to Variety about what it was like to learn he had the chronic health condition when he was just 13.

Recalling that his life was “uprooted” by the disease, which causes one’s body to create very little or no insulin, he explained, “I didn’t really know of anybody in the public eye who was living with it at the time.”

To help others like him, he started speaking out about what it was like to live with diabetes.

“If me sharing my story over these past 16 years has helped anybody, that’s the goal,” he explained.

Jonas, who welcomed his first child with his wife Priyanka Chopra earlier this year, spoke to People last year about receiving the diagnosis.

"When I was first diagnosed, I was sitting in the hospital and was scared to death, honestly, while I was learning about how to manage this new thing I was dealing with," Jonas recalled to the magazine. "It would have been amazing to have someone to look at at that time to say, oh, this is a person living with it and they're following their dreams. They're doing what they want to do with their lives and not letting it slow them down."

Recently, Jonas and Chopra have dealt with a different health crisis. Their daughter, Malti Marie, spent 100 days in the NICU before she was brought home.

In a joint message posted on Chopra’s Instagram account on Mother’s Day, the couple wrote, "Every family’s journey is unique and requires a certain level of faith, and while ours was a challenging few months, what becomes abundantly clear, in retrospect, is how precious and perfect every moment is. We are overjoyed that our little girl is finally home, and just want to thank every Doctor, nurse and specialist at Rady Children’s La Jolla and Cedar Sinai, Los Angeles, who were there selflessly every step of the way. Our next chapter begins now, and our baby is truly a badass. Let’s get it MM! Mommy and Daddy love you.”

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