Jelly Roll's Speech to Tennessee Titans' Reveals How Hard Work and Gratitude Changed His Life
Country Music star and four-time Grammy nominee Jelly Roll recently delivered a motivational speech to the National Football League (NFL) team, the Tennessee Titans, stressing the importance of building relationships with one another as they are set to embark on a 10-day road trip to start the preseason. "Y'all finna to leave for 10 days. I think it was a good time for me to come in and tell y'all, I spend about 300 days a year not here. Buses, planes, trains, automobiles, walking; you name it, we've done it," Jelly Roll, who is a Nashville native, told the team. "We've slept in vans. And I learned early that's where the magic was. Yeah, that's where the magic was for us."
The music artist, whose real name is Jelly Bradley DeFord, explained how he managed to build a connection with his bandmates offstage, which he stressed was important because it would positively affect their performance.
"See what was happening on that read between me and the boys started translating to the stage. And all that connection we were looking for on that stage, that we could never find, because we were only trying to find it in that hour, we thought we were going to connect for this 60 or 90 minutes, and we were going to change the world every night at every little local bar across the world. And then we learned that it was the 23 hours we weren't on the stage that we were building our connection. Finding a partner, finding a friend, building a relationship, building strength. Building community. That stuff will transfer to the field."
@titans ready to run through a brick wall @Jelly Roll #tennesseetitans #nfl #jellyroll #trainingcamp ♬ original sound - Tennessee Titans
During his speech, Jelly Roll revealed that he has dropped 200 pounds as part of his weight-loss journey.
"I lost 200 pounds. I told Coach I'm getting a contract if I lose another 50," he said to the applause of the Titan players.
The milestone of losing 200 miles follows Jelly Roll's updates on his weight loss journey since 2022. According to Jelly Roll, he admitted that his biggest challenge was overcoming his addiction to food.
"If you're really battling obesity, you got to start at the dinner table, man. The walking's great, all the other stuff's great, but you got to fight that addiction at the dinner table," he said, Fox News reported.
Jelly Roll, who recently collaborated with Christian artist Brandon Lake on the hit single "Hard Fought Hallelujah", previously noted that his food addiction was similar to his past addiction with drugs.
"The battle was with the food addiction, changing the way I've looked at food for the last 39 years," he told People magazine last year. "I've never had a healthy relationship with food, so that was the hard part. But once you get into that discipline and commitment, it's like an avalanche. Once that little snowball started rolling, it was on its way."
In a major milestone last October, Jelly Roll's trainer shared that the "Son of a Sinner" singer had lost 100 pounds.
"We just passed the halfway point of the tour, and Jelly's been crushing it," his trainer said in a video posted to Jelly Roll's Instagram account. "We're either walking [around] the arena, playing basketball, boxing. He just surpassed his 100-pound weight loss."
Photo Credit: ©X/Titans
More about Jelly Roll
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- Brandon Lake Jelly Roll Perform 'Hard Fought Hallelujah' at the Grand Ole Opry
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Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/John Shearer/Contributor
Originally published August 11, 2025.
