"I'm Not as Wild and Crazy as the Others"

Smash Hits +/- 1991 (England)

SH: DO YOU HAVE MANY FRIENDS?
JK:
I don't have too many friends anymore because you're away so much and they think you've forgotten about them and stuff like that. It gets aggravating. And then your friends try to take advantage of your money. You know when a friend is a good friend when you offer to pay and they really won't let you.

SH: WHAT DO YOU MISS WHEN YOU'RE ON ONE OF YOUR BILLION YEAR TOURS?
JK:
Sitting on my own toilet! Hah! Just simple pleasures like that.

SH: DO YOU STILL LIVE WITH YOUR WHOLE FAMILY?
JK:
No, just my brother and my mom. And me and Jord kinda live separate from her in the house.

SH: ARE YOU A FAITHFUL PERSON?
JK:
(most emphatically) Yeah! Very! In relationships I am.

SH: DO YOU HAVE A STEADY CHICK RIGHT NOW?
JK:
Yeah, well, I had one but we broke up just before the end of the British tour. But yeah, I was faithful. I believe in that. I believe that if you make a commitment to somebody then you gotta keep it. If you're married or something that should be it.

SH: WHAT SORT OF THINGS DO YOU WORRY ABOUT?
JK:
Oh boy.. I think I'm a real worrier. Like right now I'm worried because I have to go to the dentist's and I stayed up the whole night the other night thinking, "Oh no I'm gonna have, like, 20 cavities and they're gonna start drilling!"

SH: DO YOU USE YOUR FAME TO GET WHAT YOU WANT?
JK:
(grins) Yeah, I'll admit that! Not in a hurtful way, I mean if I call up a restaurant and try to make a reservation and they say, "We're booked until 10.30," I'll say, "well, this is Jon Knight's manager from New Kids On The Block. He wanted to come for dinner with some friends, could you accommodate him earlier?" and they usually say, "Oh yeah."

SH: DO YOU EVER THINK YOU'RE IN DANGER OF BECOMING "THE BORING ONE" IN THE NEW KIDS?
JK:
Me? Boring? Well, that's not too nice. I know I'm not as wild and crazy as the others though.

SH: DO YOU GET WEIRDED OUT BY YOUR BIG HOUSE AND ALL YOUR WEALTH?
JK:
Oh always. When I first bought my house...well I have a lot of houses actually. I have three. All in different bits of America, all on the East Coast. It was weird, I would walk through the house and touch the light switches and say, "This is MY light switch". And I bought a boat and that's weird because you just think, "I got ALL this stuff". But you can't let it affect you.

SH: WHAT'S THE MOST DOMESTICATED THING YOU'VE BOUGHT THIS YEAR?
JK:
I don't know... a lot of goofy things. I bought a big ceramic alligator because one of my houses is in a tropical place. It's life-size but it's ceramic and it's painted green. I guess it just took my fancy at the time.

SH: ARE YOU SCARED OF ANYONE?
JK:
Oh ... the Devil. I AM! And you know I always watch spooky movies about the Devil! I just watched Hellraiser the other night but I got very scared. I was like (whimpers) "Please God make sure there's no devils in this room!" I got a phobia - I hate the dark. One of my houses is in the country and at night it's pitch black and I hate it because you look out the window and you can't see anything. That's way I'm getting those lights that turn on automatically.

SH: WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WEPT
JK:
Uh... I've never been ashamed to cry. I haven't cried out of sorrow in a long time, just emotional things always put tears in my eyes but we're a very emotional family. I used to cry out of frustration and now I yell! It feels better when you yell.

SH: DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?
JK:
Yeah. Uhuh. And this is gonna sound funny but I think people should believe in God because who knows, when you die, if you've spent your life not believing in it then maybe you'll go to Hell. That doesn't sound religious, that sounds weird. But my dad was a priest so I was brought up with God and stuff.

SH: IF YOU COULD COME BACK AGAIN AFTER YOU DIE WHO WOULD YOU COME BACK AS?
JK:
Me. All over again. I think you have to. If you wanted to come back as something else it means you're not happy with yourself or with life.

SH: WHEN THE NEW KIDS SPLIT UP WILL YOU STILL BE FRIENDS?
JK:
I think we will. I think we've been around each other too long not to. It's kinda like going off to college, you don't see your parent's as often as you'd like but you still see them. You come back. And I think we'll always come back to each other.