Jelly rolls are meant to make people happy, not spout political messaging.
This might be why platinum-selling singer Jason DeFord, aka Jelly Roll, did not handle the backlash to his partisan jokes very well.
‘The American dream should be for everybody.’
Tears of a clown
Jelly Roll finished his week as the guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Thursday, with a near-20-minute monologue addressing the blowback from his jokes about President Donald Trump’s weight.
While DeFord’s jokes did not approach the realm of egregious — although he remarked that the president likely couldn’t see his penis — he was seemingly unprepared for the responses a spot on the obviously liberal talk show would garner.
Jelly Roll spent most of his time trying to convince the audience he is neither liberal nor conservative.
“Just because I watched a fight on TV doesn’t mean I support everything this administration does,” he said, referring to the UFC event at the White House. “Just like hosting Jimmy Kimmel’s show doesn’t mean I have all of Jimmy Kimmel’s politics. Sure, I lean left on some things, but like most folks, I’m pretty down the middle. I am a Christian. I am a country music singer. I’m a farmer. I’m a bow hunter.”
Then DeFord made fun of the comrades on staff at Kimmel, describing them as “communist Antifa friends” and the most talented group of “Chihuahua-hugging, oat-milk latte-loving lefties on God’s green Earth.”
It was from there that the 41-year-old made an impassioned and tear-filled speech about loving thy neighbor, with the message that dignity and compassion are not partisan issues. However, Jelly Roll’s bottom line came across as supportive of illegal immigration.
“Pain and healing knows no partisanship,” Jelly Roll said. “Hurting hearts are more important than poll numbers, and there are no boundaries or borders for broken families.”
After claiming “the American dream should be for everybody,” the singer appealed to Jesus’ teachings for how to treat a “neighbor.”
“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.'”
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Fair shake
In front of an awfully partisan audience, Jelly Roll felt the need to explain away the handshake he exchanged with the president at a UFC event in 2024.
The musician said he would “always” shake the POTUS’ hand when asked, noting that his father would have been “disappointed” had he not.
“I’m proud that I was able to shake the president of the United States’ hand. I’m also proud that I live in a country where I can make jokes about him,” the country artist added.
But Jelly Roll made sure to reiterate to Kimmel’s studio audience that he disagrees with the president more often than he agrees.
“Taking a picture with a political figure or anybody else for that matter doesn’t mean you agree or disagree with their policies or politics. More often than not I f**king don’t.”
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Randy Holmes/Disney/Getty Images
Both sides now
The emotional diatribe culminated in the Tennessee native describing his appreciation for free speech and, despite making his liberal leanings obvious, his disdain for both political parties.
“[I support] the same freedom of speech that both sides of the aisle claim they want until they hear something they don’t want to hear,” he added.
He then placed blame on “politicians and algorithms” for convincing the public that the “person across the street” is the reason life is hard, before adding:
“Our leaders on both sides of the aisle are doing an absolute s**t job of trying to bring us together, y’all.”
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