Jelly Roll built one of music’s most inspiring transformation stories, but in a raw new confession, the Tennessee hitmaker admits the stress of his divorce from Bunnie XO cracked the door open on his oldest enemy.
The 41-year-old singer, whose real name is Jason DeFord, got brutally honest in a YouTube video posted Friday, July 10, telling a fan asking for weight-loss advice that the past week tested him in ways his Tennessee fans rarely see. “I’ve been overeating the last three or four days and I was feeling myself stress eating,” he admitted. “And then, what else happened was the addict in me came out.“
What he described next was the anatomy of a spiral.
It started with a single dessert at a tour stop. “We had this show at this one spot that I love their catering. They have a dairy-free skillet cookie. I don’t eat nothing like that. I’m like a drug addict. You can’t eat that, because if I eat one, I eat two. I eat four,” he confessed, per E! News. From there it moved fast: a peanut butter fluff at a taco truck, then hunting a chocolate bar at a rest stop. “Damn, that fast, now I’ve consumed 2,000 extra calories today that I didn’t even see coming,” he recalled thinking.
The confession lands two months after Jelly Roll filed for divorce from Bunnie XO, his wife of nearly a decade, a split both insist remains loving and amicable. The star, who once weighed more than 500 pounds and hit his goal weight in January, explained moderation has simply never existed for him: “If you put a big bowl of strawberries in front of me and leave me alone, I will eat the entire bowl of strawberries.“
Still, he refused to let the stumble define the story, saying he gives himself grace on bad days and lives by one ironclad rule: never let one bad day become two in a row.
Fans Rally Behind The Star’s Raw Honesty
The response on his own channel ran overwhelmingly supportive, with barely a skeptic in the thread. “He is spot on about the food addiction. He has done such a great job,” one fan wrote. Another got just as vulnerable as he did: “for me, food is how i escape from reality. i can eat and watch youtube and completely zone out. it’s the only peace i get.“
One viewer shared a transformation of his own: “I started in December of 25 at 440 pounds at the age of 32 and a son on the way !!!! I dedicated my life to losing weight. I am now 256 pounds.” The lighter side showed up too: “Having a “Relationship” with food is wild.” one fan cracked, while another kept it to five words: “Hey. Proud of u.“
Jelly Roll has set a goal of running the New York City Marathon on November 1 and opens for Post Malone Wednesday in Kansas City, while Bunnie XO has said the divorce settlement could be finalized within weeks.
