Jelly Roll Says He Thought His ‘Heart Could Quit Any Day’ Before Weight Loss: ‘I Could Feel Myself Dying’
- - Jelly Roll Says He Thought His ‘Heart Could Quit Any Day’ Before Weight Loss: ‘I Could Feel Myself Dying’
Cara Lynn ShultzDecember 12, 2025 at 5:58 AM
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Jelly Roll on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. -
Jelly Roll said that when he turned 39, he realized “I don't think I've ever met a 500-pound, 40-year-old”
During a Dec. 10 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Jelly said that he’d had “multiple heart issues” and “could feel myself dying”
The singer shared that he never thought he’d have this kind of life
Jelly Roll shared that he kicked off his weight-loss journey after he said “I could feel myself dying.”
It was around his 39th birthday in 2023 that “I started really considering taking the step to try to make a major change in my life,” the country singer, 41, said during a Wednesday, Dec. 10 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. “I thought about it around my birthday ‘cause I knew my next one was 40. You know what, I don't think I've ever met a 500-pound, 40-year-old.”
“That’s usually when they drop off,” Rogan, 58, said.
“It felt like I'd already cheated the game. I'd had multiple heart issues,” Jelly (real name: Jason DeFord) said. “I was like, man, I should really start trying to figure this out. I could feel myself dying, Joe.”
Sara Kauss/FilmMagic
Jelly Roll at the CMA Awards in Nashville in 2022.
“I’ve been trying to lose this weight my whole life,” the newly minted Grand Ole Opry member said, sharing that he spent most of 2022 between 480 and 560 lbs. “That's how much I fluctuated in just a year, up and down.”
That’s when, he said, he decided “to take a different approach. I'm going to really take my time with it and I'm going to think about what I'm doing and be intentional. I'm not going to let it be an emotional thing where you just jump up and go, 'I'm going to go running today!' I was like, 'Let me let me figure this out.' ”
Jelly — who has lost nearly 200 lbs. since 2022 — credits a healthy diet and exercise for his dramatic slimdown. As he explained to Rogan, it took a mental shift to help him stay on track: “Clearly, I've dealt with drug addiction. So, I was like, maybe there's something here.” He shared that he realized “overeating wasn't a failure of willpower for me. It was a biological loop that I didn't know how to interrupt.”
“The problem with food addiction, as opposed to every other addiction, is that you have to keep doing the thing you're addicted to,” Rogan said.
“It's everywhere. Not that crack isn't everywhere and heroin isn't everywhere," Jelly said. "There's not heroin on this table. You know what I'm saying? There's a cookie on here somewhere.”
“Food is something that you need to sustain you to keep alive. Like imagine if you were a gambling addict, but you had to play a few hands of blackjack every day,” Rogan said. "Every day."
Jelly Roll/Instagram
Jelly Roll shares a clean-shaven look after weight loss.
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“I had never planned on living,” the "I Am Not Okay" singer continued, sharing that originally, when he was working on his career, he thought, “When I die, at least my kids might be okay and they won't be ashamed of me." And the last time he saw Rogan, he thought, “I’ll probably never see Joe again.”
“I'd think, you know, it'll probably go any day for me. You know what I mean? Like, my heart could quit any day. I could relapse and overdose,” he said of his previous mentality. But now, Jelly says, “to like sit here and look at you now like, 'Dog, I'm going to be a 70-year-old man with you, Bubba' … it's going to be cool.”
"I never would have thought I could have this kind of life."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
