Backstage Country

Jelly Roll: ‘I Showed Up To Elementary School Drunk’

Jelly Roll sat for a candid interview with country superstar Eric Church during CRS week in Nashville last week, and Jelly posted a clip from the interview on his Instagram….

Jelly Roll laughs, wearing a gray jacket and black ball cap.
Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images

Jelly Roll sat for a candid interview with country superstar Eric Church during CRS week in Nashville last week, and Jelly posted a clip from the interview on his Instagram.

Jelly was quite funny during the country star sit-down and even discussed his childhood with Church. He said in the video clip when Eric asked him what his childhood was like, "I was the baby. To this day, my Uncle calls me Baby Jason. I am 6'2, 370 pounds, dawg. I am a 40-year-old (expletive) man, and he is like, 'Baby Jason,' and Mama Jane kisses me on the cheek and pinches my ear and sh--."

He continued, "It's super cool. We lived in a middle, lower-class neighborhood in Antioch right out here. Mother kind of stuggled with drug addiction. Daddy drank, you know what I mean? I was probably 13 years old when I found out Vodka wasn't a sweetener. If you watch Vodka get poured into a Stanley coffee cup your whole life at 5 am, you just assume it's (expletive) Sweet and Low. Until you're 13 and you're old enough to want to drink some Sweet and Low with your coffee (laughs). I'll never forget that conversation when I showed up to elementary school drunk."

See that post (with many expletives) here.

Jelly has had an [inlink id="jelly-roll-tell-his-younger-self" text="incredible few years"] and has become a music superstar with acting in his sights, including TV and maybe someday movies.

As Jelly's star continues to shine, the Nashville native talked with Nashville Lifestyle Magazine about what he would tell his younger self. He said, "I would tell my younger self that it’s a blip on the radar right now. Don’t overthink it, you’re just in a very small season of your life. I would tell my 30-year-old self that, not even just my 12-year-old self."

He continued that he would go back and tell his 33-year-old self, "Just relax. You’re not going to conquer the world today; take your time." That would be his biggest message: "remain hopeful."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.