Jelly Roll closed out his week guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live with a poignant, at times, tearful monologue in which he sought to once and for all clarify his beliefs and political views. His remarks came in response to jokes he made about Donald Trump throughout the week, which drew backlash from MAGA media, as well as criticism he received earlier this year after he declined to comment on the state of American politics at the 2026 Grammys.
“Sure, I lean left on some things, but like most folks, I’m pretty down the middle,” Jelly Roll explained. “I am a Christian. I am a country music singer. I’m a farmer. I’m a bow hunter. And most of the things I eat, I prefer to get with a stick and a string. That’s the truth! In fact, the second I leave here, I’m going elk hunting, and I’m going to send the vegan producer Aaron her own elk steak!”
“For the last six months, I’ve watched people decide who I am, what I am, what I believe, what I support, and what I don’t support,” he continued. “And I felt that even more this week just because I told a couple of jokes. And honestly, this goes back further for me, y’all. This goes back to February this year. I won my first Grammy.”
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“It was the single greatest moment and the greatest honor of my career. I got called on that stage, I got handed an award that I’ve been dreaming about since I was a child, and immediately after, I was asked to make what I felt at the time was a political stance. I fumbled my words. Looking back, I don’t necessarily regret asking for more time before I spoke — I wish more people took more time before they spoke — 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,” Jelly Roll noted, “by trying so hard not to make a political statement, I became one. 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.”
Jelly Roll Said that he always wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. “It’s simple for me. I always wanted the recovering addict, the felon who is trying to change his life, the single mama working a double hard for her family, and everybody else that ever felt forgotten to know that I represent those without representation.”
“And speaking for those people is what I believe my calling is,” he said. “And 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.”
Through tears, Jelly Roll said, “But my daddy always told me… it is never too late to do the right thing.” And with that, the singer proceeded to share what he believes in.
“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.
“And here’s what I know: the American dream can’t just be for people like me. It can’t be for just people like me. Second chances, grace, dignity, opportunity… it can’t just be for people like me. Redemption, empathy, decency, and hope… it can’t just be for people like me. The American dream should be for everybody.”
“And I want y’all to know that despite the fact that I cuss and I tell jokes, I truly am a man of faith,” he continued. “And I can’t read the Gospels without being confronted by the words of Jesus himself when he said: “When I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me a drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me in.” That’s what Jesus said.”
“He also gave us two commandments: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that’s what I should have said that night. There wasn’t an asterisk after ‘neighbor.’ There wasn’t a political party exemption. It did not require us to know what country you were born in. There wasn’t a sentence afterward that said, ‘Unless you’re afraid of them.’ It just said, ‘Love your neighbor.’ And I don’t know about y’all, but that’s the standard I want to be held to.”
Jelly Roll also addressed why he has met with Donald Trump, explaining that his father was “a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and he died in 2019. And this might be a hot take, but out of respect for him and everybody who has ever served and continues to serve this country, I will always shake the hand of the sitting president of the United States when asked… And I will shake the hand of any president that occupies that office because a handshake is not an endorsement, a conversation is not an allegiance, and a joke is not a political point of view.”
The singer closed his comments by sharing an anecdote from his late father that still sits with him today: “My father, Buddy DeFord, God rest his soul, was a blue-collar Democrat, and his brother was a red-hat Republican. And this might be hard for people out there to understand, but they were absolutely best friends. And when my father was in hospice on his deathbed and I had the opportunity to ask him everything I wanted to know, I said, ‘Dad, how are you and your brother so tight when y’all didn’t agree about anything?’”
And he looked at me and said, ‘Son, we agreed about hundreds of things. We only didn’t agree about a few things, and we were not going to let the few things we didn’t agree about define our entire relationship.’
“There’s a famous quote that I think about all the time that says: “While we are fighting monsters, we must be careful not to become a monster ourselves,’ Jelly Roll said. “We may disagree. We may argue. We may vote completely differently. But let’s try not to let the couple of things we disagree about make us forget the hundreds and hundreds of things we have in common. My daddy was right about that. And he was right about something else: it is never too late to do the right thing. And I hope that tonight, while he’s looking down from heaven, I made him proud.”