“Purity rings were to wait for the right person when the time is right,” Joe said during the Carpool Karaoke segment of The Late, Late Show in 2019. “It came natural for everyone we grew up with to go through this and get one and say, ‘I’m going to wait for the right person,’ some people say, ‘I’m going to wait until marriage.’ But when you’re like 15, 16, and you start dating, and you go ‘wait a minute, what did I say I’m going to do?’”
Elsewhere in the segment, Joe admitted that the purity rings had become a “running joke”. “The next thing you know, it’s the Jonas Brothers … and their purity rings,” Joe said of the first time they were asked about the rings in an interview. “That was what people ran with forever, that was the running joke.” And while they found it funny, Joe said it eventually ran its course.
“We found the humor in it sometimes,” Joe said. “But we of course we just decided at one point, ‘Look, this is not who we are. We don’t need to wear these anymore. This is annoying, and people are making fun of it anyway.’”