Jelly Roll, the country-rap guy whose real name is Jason Bradley DeFord, grabbed a lot of attention this week. After snagging three Grammy awards on the same night, during press day at the 2026 Grammy Awards, he laid it all out: his fight with food addiction feels a lot like his old battle with cocaine.Let’s take a closer look at what he said and all that he shared about the struggle he endured and overcame.
Jelly Roll’s journey with addiction and weight loss
After dropping over 200 pounds, Jelly Roll didn’t sugarcoat what it takes to change. During press day at the 2026 Grammy Awards, he told reporters that beating unhealthy eating habits demanded the same focus and willpower he needed to get off drugs. “I had to fight my food addiction just the way I fought my cocaine addiction,” he said. It wasn’t just about swapping out food choices. He had to totally rethink how he related to food, and what it meant for him emotionally and mentally.Jelly Roll revealed that therapy helped him a great deal. He said working through the mental side, learning to quiet what he calls “food noise,” made a huge difference. Instead of reaching for medications like GLP-1s, he leaned hard into daily routines. Running, staying consistent, and getting real with himself about why he ate the way he did, that’s what worked. His lesson through the toil: if you want real change, you have to dig into the habits and feelings that lead you to eat in the first place.
Who is Jelly Roll?
Born and raised as Jason Bradley DeFord in Nashville, Jelly Roll’s life has been anything but smooth. He grew up dealing with addiction, run-ins with the law, and even time behind bars. Still, he found his voice—honest, gritty, sometimes rough around the edges—mixing hip-hop, country, and rock. His songs hit home because they’re raw and real, touching on struggle, faith, and finding your way out of the dark. He built his fanbase the hard way, one show and one song at a time. Over the years, he’s dropped hits like ‘Need a Favor’ and ‘Save Me’. People connect to his music because, for a lot of them, his story feels like their own.This week, Jelly Roll hit a new high: three Grammy wins at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards. He picked up Best Contemporary Country Album for Beautifully Broken, Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song with Brandon Lake for ‘Hard Fought Hallelujah’, and Best Country Duo/Group Performance with Shaboozey for ‘Amen’. Standing backstage with his wife, Bunnie Xo, Jelly Roll got emotional. The wins, he said, all come down to his fans, especially the ones who believed in him when nobody else did.“I want y’all to know that… we did it, baby. This would never have happened without them,” he said. “There were only a few people in the world, at the very beginning, who believed that this overweight white trash kid from Tennessee was going to figure it out. And now, here I am.”He hopes his story reaches even more people now. “I think there are a lot of people watching the Grammys tonight, and maybe, for the first time in a long time, they feel seen. I decided to be that guy,” he told the crowd.
