After Jelly Roll avoided discussing his politics at the Grammy Awards in February, he peeled off the band-aid this week with a heartfelt speech.
During his final night as Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host on Friday, the 3x Grammy winner opened up about watching “people decide who I am, what I am, what I believe, what I support and what I don’t support” after he “fumbled my words” when a reporter asked about his political stance at the awards show.
“Looking back, I don’t necessarily regret asking for more time before I spoke. I wish more people took more time before they spoke,” he explained. “But I do wish I had found the words to express my heart just a little bit sooner. But I was afraid that anything I was going to say was going to be immediately taken as a political statement. And ironically, by trying so hard not to make a political statement, I became one.”
Jelly Roll continued, “I spent my entire career trying not to belong to a political party, partly because until March of this year, I wasn’t even allowed to vote. But now that I have that right, it’s one I plan to exercise this coming November.”
Having been convicted of several felonies in his life, Jelly Roll was pardoned by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee for his crimes in the state last December, restoring his voting rights.
Jelly Roll explained that he wants to be “a voice for the voiceless because I know those people. Those are my people. I try to speak for the unspoken,” adding, “That night at the Grammys, I had an opportunity to speak up for people who were scared, hurting and felt like nobody was speaking for them. I had a microphone and I didn’t use it the right way.
“But my daddy always told me, it is never too late to do the right thing,” he continued. “So, I’m going to try to do the right thing, right now, because human dignity isn’t Republican nor Democrat. Compassion isn’t left-wing and mercy isn’t right-wing. Pain and healing knows no partisanship. Hurting hearts are more important than poll numbers. And there are no boundaries or borders for broken families.”
After shaking Donald Trump‘s hand at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden in November 2024, Jelly Roll also stressed that “a handshake is not an endorsement, a conversation is not an allegiance, and a joke is not a political point of view.”
Noting that his dad, a USMC veteran who died in 2019, was “one of my best friends,” Jelly Roll said, “This might be a hot take, but out of respect for him and everybody who has ever served or continues to serve this country, I will always shake the hand of the sitting president of the United States when asked. My father would have been disappointed had I done anything other than that. I’m proud that I was able to shake the president of the United States’ hand. I’m also proud I live in a country where I can make jokes about him. Ain’t that what’s great about being an American? The democracy, the freedom of speech?”
Jelly Roll concluded his monologue, “While everything else I’ve said this week has been a complete joke, this is not. Our leaders on both sides of the aisle are doing an absolute sh*t job of trying to bring us together, y’all. … We may disagree, we may argue, may vote completely differently. But let’s try not to let the couple of things we disagree about forget the hundreds and hundreds of things we have in common.”
