What you need to know
Jelly Roll wasn’t always upfront about his tattoos.
In an exclusive interview with Taste of Country magazine published on Monday, January 5, the 41-year-old country star revealed what she’s been telling her 17-year-old daughter Bailey’s friends about her face ink.
“It was so funny because when she was in kindergarten, all her little friends were like, ‘What’s this thing on your face?'” Jelly Roll told the outlet. “I would have said, ‘You won’t believe it, I only drew this when I came to see you guys, and you guys are so excited.'”
He continued, “Finally, they said, ‘How do you draw it the same way every time?'” I said, “We’ve got a lot of them, so we’ve got little stickers now.” ”
The “Save Me” singer also said that as her daughters got older, some of her friends’ parents wouldn’t let them stay over because of the tattoos.
The star opened up about misconceptions about his ink collection in a cover story for Men’s Health magazine published on Friday, January 2nd. When the magazine mentioned that his appearance was attention-grabbing, he laughed and said, “It’s the exact opposite.”
“Shame doesn’t always manifest in the way we expect it to. We think of shame as someone kneeling down in the street, bowing their head. But shame can also be pride,” he explained.
Jason Kempin/Getty
“Behind real bravado, you usually find shame. Sometimes you find guilt, sometimes you find insecurity. I was the biggest, the loudest, the toughest, the meanest, the grumpiest, the fattest,” the musician said, adding that behind the wall was a “really, really small, insecure person.” “Sure, I was. And as a byproduct of that, I gained a lot of weight.”
Jelly Roll (real name Jason Deford) has been undergoing a physical transformation, recently losing 275 pounds. And I shaved my face for the first time in 10 years. He told Men’s Health that he consistently lost between 9 and 15 pounds. Every month last year.
Christopher Polk/Variety, via Getty
The musician has previously spoken about his tattoos. In 2024, he admitted that he regrets getting “almost all” of his tattoos. “Just like that core philosophy is so ingrained in my life when I was 17, now that I’m 40, I’m like, ‘What was I thinking?'” he told GQ. “I hate them all.”
Never miss a news. Sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up to date on everything PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to human interest stories.
In an interview, Jelly Roll talked about how his tattoo journey began when he had a simple cross tattooed on his right arm at the age of 14. He added that he eventually started getting tattoos on his face as well as his body. Some of his tattoos were gotten while in prison, he said.
