{"id":874835,"date":"2026-08-28T17:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T17:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/874835\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T17:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T17:58:13","slug":"jelly-roll-gives-emotional-monologue-on-politics-and-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/874835\/","title":{"rendered":"Jelly Roll Gives Emotional Monologue on Politics and Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jelly Roll<\/a> 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<\/a> throughout the week, which drew backlash<\/a> from MAGA media, as well as criticism<\/a> he received earlier this year after he declined to comment on the state of American politics at the 2026 Grammys.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, I lean left on some things, but like most folks, I\u2019m pretty down the middle,\u201d Jelly Roll explained. \u201cI am a Christian. I am a country music singer. I\u2019m a farmer. I\u2019m a bow hunter. And most of the things I eat, I prefer to get with a stick and a string. That\u2019s the truth! In fact, the second I leave here, I\u2019m going elk hunting, and I\u2019m going to send the vegan producer Aaron her own elk steak!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the last six months, I\u2019ve watched people decide who I am, what I am, what I believe, what I support, and what I don\u2019t support,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd I felt that even more this week just because I told a couple of jokes. And honestly, this goes back further for me, y\u2019all. This goes back to February this year. I won my first Grammy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Video<\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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\u2019ve 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\u2019t necessarily regret asking for more time before I spoke \u2014 I wish more people took more time before they spoke \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd ironically,\u201d Jelly Roll noted, \u201cby 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\u2014partly because until March of this year, I wasn\u2019t even allowed to vote. But now that I have that right, it\u2019s one I plan to exercise this coming November.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jelly Roll Said that he always wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd speaking for those people is what I believe my calling is,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd 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\u2019t use it the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through tears, Jelly Roll said, \u201cBut my daddy always told me\u2026 it is never too late to do the right thing.\u201d And with that, the singer proceeded to share what he believes in.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman dignity isn\u2019t Republican nor Democrat. Compassion isn\u2019t left-wing, and mercy isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd here\u2019s what I know: the American dream can\u2019t just be for people like me. It can\u2019t be for just people like me. Second chances, grace, dignity, opportunity\u2026 it can\u2019t just be for people like me. Redemption, empathy, decency, and hope\u2026 it can\u2019t just be for people like me. The American dream should be for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I want y\u2019all to know that despite the fact that I cuss and I tell jokes, I truly am a man of faith,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t read the Gospels without being confronted by the words of Jesus himself when he said: \u201cWhen 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.\u201d That\u2019s what Jesus said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe also gave us two commandments: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that\u2019s what I should have said that night. There wasn\u2019t an asterisk after \u2018neighbor.\u2019 There wasn\u2019t a political party exemption. It did not require us to know what country you were born in. There wasn\u2019t a sentence afterward that said, \u2018Unless you\u2019re afraid of them.\u2019 It just said, \u2018Love your neighbor.\u2019 And I don\u2019t know about y\u2019all, but that\u2019s the standard I want to be held to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jelly Roll also addressed why he has met with Donald Trump, explaining that his father was \u201ca 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\u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer closed his comments by sharing an anecdote from his late father that still sits with him today: \u201cMy 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, \u2018Dad, how are you and your brother so tight when y\u2019all didn\u2019t agree about anything?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he looked at me and said, \u2018Son, we agreed about hundreds of things. We only didn\u2019t agree about a few things, and we were not going to let the few things we didn\u2019t agree about define our entire relationship.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a famous quote that I think about all the time that says: \u201cWhile we are fighting monsters, we must be careful not to become a monster ourselves,\u2019 Jelly Roll said. \u201cWe may disagree. We may argue. We may vote completely differently. But let\u2019s 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\u2019s looking down from heaven, I made him proud.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jelly Roll closed out his week guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live with a poignant, at times, tearful monologue in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-874835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}