When Jelly Roll sat down with Joe Rogan for Episode #2424 of The Joe Rogan Experience, the country music star opened up about his remarkable weight loss journey and the spiritual transformation that accompanied it.
Throughout the nearly four-hour conversation, Jelly Roll repeatedly returned to themes of faith, redemption, and divine intervention.
Early in the podcast, Rogan commented on Jelly Roll’s transformation, saying he looked like “a totally different human being.” This prompted Jelly Roll’s first spiritual reflection of the interview.
“I don’t want to get super spiritual out the gate, but I will because I think God wants me to right now because you saying that. There’s a scripture in the Bible that says in Christ all things are a new creation, which I thought was interesting because it didn’t talk about restoring the old. It says that in God we are a completely new creation,” Jelly Roll explained.
“I was looking at it at first like I’m restoring my heart. But then when you’re saying that I’m like, ‘No, I didn’t restore my heart. I got a whole new heart. This is a brand new heart, Joe.’ It might be cloaked as the old one, but God touched it. It’s a whole new heart, baby. It’s a different heart,” he said.
This concept of complete renewal rather than restoration became a recurring theme. Jelly Roll described how his weight loss journey began with a moment of accountability on a rainy Monday morning when his family encouraged him to postpone his planned walk.
“I was done lying to y’all and I’m done lying to me. I told y’all I was going to go do this walk and I’m going to do this walk,” he recalled. When he returned up his steep driveway, his entire family was outside cheering for him despite years of broken promises about his health.
“I realized that in addiction the family will kind of cater to the addict. It’s nature,” Jelly Roll said emotionally. “I realized then how much my addiction had been hurting his family… And here they are cheering for me. No, dude. We’re turning up. We’re going to figure this out.”
During the episode, Jelly Roll also went on to reveal just how profoundly obesity had altered his perception of the world. He told Rogan that for nearly 20 years, he was colorblind. With the weight gone, he feels like the world has quite literally come back to life.
The singer credits prayer as instrumental in changing his life circumstances. “I started praying for new friends five years ago, like on my knees to God directly, like God, I’ve done everything I can for every friend I brought with me along the way. Everybody who came with me can’t go with me. Everybody’s not growing at the rate I’m growing. I need new friends,” he shared. “And then I’d start bumping into guys like Cam Haynes, guys like David Goggins.”
One of the most powerful moments in the interview came when Jelly Roll described performing at the Vatican in St. Peter’s Square. “I could not believe I got that call, Joe,” he said. Before the performance, he wrestled with feelings of unworthiness. “I prayed and I was like, ‘God, I cuss. I smoke… How am I being a vessel here?’ Like, I don’t like… And that’s when I heard it just so clear like, ‘Dude, just open your hands.'”
Jelly Roll also spoke about finding happiness through usefulness rather than chasing happiness itself. “My wife has that quote in the house that says we no longer search for happiness. We search to be useful,” he explained.
“The moment I quit looking for my happiness now I just look to be a tool. Like I walk in every situation with my hands open like, ‘God what you got for me here. How can I bring value to this? What can I do? Can I motivate?’ Like where can I be a little piece of you in this moment.. And that changed everything. By default I’m always happy because I’m being useful.”
The interview concluded with Rogan surprising Jelly Roll with a video message from Craig Morgan inviting him to become a member of the Grand Old Opry. Through tears, Jelly Roll reflected on how Morgan’s song “Almost Home” had given him hope during his incarceration years earlier.
“I thought I’d die young or I thought I’d k*ll myself. I didn’t think I was going to be able to figure it out,” Jelly Roll admitted. But through faith, support, and determined effort, he has transformed his life. “God will make things bigger than your dreams. Somebody out there right now is dreaming of something and it’s too small. Dream bigger, baby.”
