Here's the tea: We pretty much assumed that Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner were going to rule at parenting the moment they confirmed they were expecting now-3-year-old daughter Willa.
And by confirmed, we mean walked outside while wearing baby doll-style dresses and high-waisted leggings, because they are far too hip to do anything quite as basic as cut into a pink- and blue-hued cake.
They preferred instead to let Turner's bump do the talking. And even that wasn't until well after Willa's July 2020 arrival, Queen Sansa finally bestowing us with a few snaps of her pregnancy style. (Not to mention, while pregnant with baby no. 2, a girl they welcomed last summer, Turner made us bend the knee when she displayed her bump at the 2022 Met Gala.)
But even a couple cool enough to host a wedding as a Billboard Music Awards afterparty (complete with a Vegas chapel, an Elvis impersonator and some Ring Pops) isn't immune from the sort of uncontainable pride and joy that affects new parents.
"It's been amazing," Jonas, turning 34 Aug. 15, shared with Gayle King during a virtual 2021 appearance on CBS This Morning. Emphasizing the thinnest of silver linings that the coronavirus pandemic provided, he continued, "It's been forced time at home—I'm always on the go, I'm always moving and traveling and touring. To be in one place for a solid amount of time and having my feet on the ground and be with my family, my immediate family, is time I don't think I'll get back. I'm so thankful and grateful."
He was also indebted to sleep schedules, joking that the one thing he'd learned in nearly a year of fatherhood was that "naps are nice. All around."
As for his eldest daughter herself, she was, in a word, "Gorgeous."
We're guessing the cool gene is genetic as well. Because we're here for any family who points to Legos as the cause of their biggest quarantine fight and bespoke cocktails as the solution.
In a 2021 chat with the Wall Street Journal, Jonas revealed their quarantine quirk of choice was to get "very into" Legos.
"My wife and I probably built 10 monstrous Legos," he recalled. "It was also quite funny, because I was super focused on helping her but then I was getting easily distracted and playing Fortnite." At first, he continued, they argued over his lack of commitment to the project, "and then it was like, she loves her organization and it's completely different from the way I would build it: 'You do you; I'll be here for support.' So then I became moral support; I'll make the cocktails for us."
A truly appropriate lesson in teamwork. Though, by all accounts, the couple, who marked their fourth wedding anniversary earlier this year, are doing just fine in that regard. "Joe is very hands on and involved," a source described the couple's parenting style in the days immediately after Willa's arrival. "He wants to do everything he can and loves being with the baby and helping Sophie."
Or, as Turner put it in a 2021 Father's Day tribute, "Joe you are the best baby daddy, It's my greatest joy to watch."
To hear Turner tell it, her pregnancy was kinda nice, or at least as pleasant as that sort of experience can be when the world is going mad around you.
Settled into their new home, a 14,000-square-foot Encino, Calif., spread that felt especially prudent once the stay-at-home orders came down, "I feel as though the only thing that's changed for me is having this incredible sense of security," she gushed of married life in Elle's April 2020 issue. "Just the word 'husband' and the word 'wife'—they solidify the relationship. I love being married. I think it's wonderful."
They didn't even mind all that much when they got a head start on the more homebound life of parenthood months ahead of schedule.
"We're having a good time," the Jo Bro told Andy Cohen about their movie night- and Zoom trivia-filled quarantine life during an April 2020 Instagram Live chat. "We got married last year, so we're still enjoying that time."
For Turner, a natural homebody, that meant cozying up in her sweats, mocking her husbands unnecessarily formal use of jeans, reading through scripts and keeping the drinks coming as he took to Instagram Live with his DJ skills. "I pour him his drinks. I pour him his alcohol. I give him tequila shots," she revealed during a March 2020 appearance on Conan at Home. "He'll text me and be like, 'What time is it?' I'll reply from the kitchen, 'Shot time,' and bring him a shot of tequila."
Sometimes she would take a break to walk their pups. Otherwise, she shared, she was "kind of loving" being "very, very quarantined" at home. "There's no rules in quarantine. It's fun."
Really, she told host Conan O'Brien, "Everything seems to be working out in my favor here. Joe's like a—he's a real social butterfly. So, I struggle to kind of lock him down and have him just spend time with me. So, it's kind of…it's, like, prison for him, but it's great for me."
A situation made all the better by Jonas' willingness to let Turner truss him out in her makeup and pamper her by whipping up various cuisines.
"I am trying to get my British delicacies down," he told Cohen. "For us it has been wonderful... the thing I would encourage other couples is to find fun creative ways to have a date night with one another."
And now that their date nights include a side of diaper cream and a a few choice readings from Natalie Portman's Fables (a gift from the Oscar winner herself) well, they're not exactly complaining. (Also, they understand the importance of a proper parents' night out, whether that means dinner in Malibu or a trip to France for Fashion Week because, as Turner put it, "Paris really is always a good idea.")
The native of Northampton, England, and her New Jersey-bred husband are "so excited to be parents," a source told E! News in those initial weeks, revealing the duo have "been texting pictures to friends and calling on FaceTime to show her off."
In the years since, they've found some more creative ways of putting their new-parent pride on display, eagle-eyed Instagram fans making note of both Turner's Willa-themed Jennifer Fisher Jewelry necklace and the delicate "W" on her left wrist.
Though properly obsessed, the pair have been intentional about keeping both their eldest and their latest arrival away from prying lenses, Turner going off on a pack of photographers in 2021 for "taking pictures of a baby without their permission." She has yet to share any photos herself, she noted, and it wasn't as if she didn't have an iPhone full of 'em.
"The reason that I am not posting pictures of my daughter and making sure that we can avoid paparazzi at all costs is because I explicitly do not want those photos out there," she explained in a clip she added, then deleted, from her Instagram Story. "She is my daughter. She did not ask for this life, to be photographed."
So we're not exactly putting money down on Willa making a sidestage appearance as Jonas and brothers Nick Jonas and Kevin Jonas continue their Five Albums. One Night tour.
However, the toddler does command an audience with a few special VIPs. "They think she's adorable," Danielle Jonas told People of her daughters' reactions to their new cousin. The entire Jonas brood—she and her husband, his brothers and their wives Turner and Priyanka Chopra—made a habit of hopping on Zoom for virtual movie nights, the mom of two shared, "and we go to the same movie and start at the same time. People are talking through the movie and it's just fun!"
But for 9-year-old Alena and 6-year-old Valentina, Willa is the main attraction. "They are over the moon about her," she said in the March 2021 chat. "Everything is 'I'm going to make this picture for Willa. Can you send it to her?' And we'll be looking on the computer for swimsuits and they'll be like, 'Willa needs one and maybe we need to get her one for Easter.' Everything always comes back to Willa."
Which, join the club. Though Turner has already cemented motherhood as "my favorite job I've ever had," her other day job eventually came calling. And returning to work while Jonas hits the road means they're going to have to rely on that finely honed teamwork.
"It's definitely a new experience now that we are all kind of back. I'm going on tour, she's starting a project," he admitted while appearing on E!'s Daily Pop in June 2021. "It's going to be a lot of flying back and forth on days off, for me at least. It's kind of a new territory."
Sometimes that's what a man's gotta do. But we have a feeling they're up to the challenge.
(Originally published Aug. 15, 2021, at 6 a.m. PT)