NEWSJelly Roll Reveals the Wholesome Lie He Would Tell His Daughter and Her Friends About His Face Tattoos
Country singer Jelly Roll joked that he used to tell his daughter's kindergarten class that he 'drew on' his face tattoos.
Jan. 6 2026, Published 9:16 a.m. ET
Country music star Jelly Roll couldn’t help but laugh when reminiscing about how he once explained his face tattoos to a group of curious kindergarteners.
During a recent appearance on "Taste of Country Nights," the Grammy‑nominated singer opened up about the humorous predicament he found himself in when he would drop off his daughter, Bailee, at school, and her classmates would immediately ask about the ink covering his face.
Jelly Roll shared how he explained his face tattoos to kindergarteners.
"When she was in kindergarten, it was so funny because all of her little friends would go, 'What is all that stuff on your face?' Jelly Roll, 41, shared. "I would go 'You won't believe this, I only draw this on when I come see y'all, so y'all are excited about it.'"
But of course, the children weren’t satisfied with that answer. When they pressed him on how he managed to draw the tattoos the same way every time, Jelly Roll ramped up the tall tale.
He told the kids had started using "little sticker things now because I been coming so much."
Despite the singer's humor about the subject, over time, some of those same classmates and their parents began forming assumptions about him based on his tattoos, even going so far as to restrict playdates because of the lifestyle they thought the ink represented.
Life-Changing Weight Loss
Jelly Roll has recently lost almost 300 pounds.
Beyond the laughs about kindergarten kids asking about his face tattoos, Jelly Roll’s life has undergone one of the most dramatic transformations of his career
In a recent Men’s Health cover story and accompanying documentary short A Year for a Life, Jelly Roll opened up about losing 275 pounds, a shift he says fundamentally changed his life.
He described his former self as being on a path toward "literally eating myself to absolute death."
"Here I was going into my 40s at 500 and some pounds," Jelly Roll said in the film.
"I think I was just trying to find my way into whatever I could, and I think what I was doing was, I felt so misunderstood that I was closet-eating the whole time," he added.
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Jelly Roll turned to boxing and other activities to lose weight.
The documentary showed Jelly Roll pushing his body — boxing, running stairs, doing push‑ups — as he worked toward a healthier lifestyle well into his 40s.
"I wish I could bottle what I'm feeling right now up and give it to everybody who’s struggling out there," Jelly Roll said in the trailer. "It is special, it's different, and it really came through food and exercise. It came through just being willing to pound the pavement and get my heart rate up."
He suspected he weighed over 500 pounds in 2021.
The country crooner suspected that he weighed over 540 pounds in 2021. However, he's uncertain about the exact because his scale didn't go over 520 pounds.
"The needle went past 520, but it didn’t blow it down," he told Men's Health. "And I would play with it—I would teeter the foot up, like, how low could I get it? I was mad optimistic. So it could have been 560, it could have been 528."
