October 16, 2024
Jelly Roll is glad most people didn’t see him in his 20s.
The award-winning country star, 39, who recently got candid about his troubled teenage years as well as his 20s, has shared more insights.
"I look back at those years, Jay, and I'm so embarrassed to talk about them,” he said in a recent episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty, referring to his earlier criminal record that began at age 14 that got him incarcerated.
“I was still a bad person in my early 30s, but I mean, I was a really horrible kid all the way into my mid-20s. People are always like, 'You're the nicest dude I've ever met.' I'm like, 'I'm so glad y'all haven't met nobody that knew me 20 years ago,'" the singer continued.
The Somebody Save Me singer also confessed to having a list of people to apologise to, including a robbery victim, but added, "I just haven't made it that far down yet."
As for the robbery incident that landed him in jail, Jelly explained, "I'd gotten a fight with a kid and back then they had the chain wallets. When we were wrestling, I grabbed a chain wallet to try to hit him with it, and that was a strong-arm robbery case. So I ended up in the system for like 20-something months when I was 13 for that strong-arm robbery."
"No matter how old I was, I had no business taking from anybody," the singer added. "Just this entitlement that I had that the world owed me enough that I could come take your stuff. What a horrible, horrible way to look at life and people, just what a horrible way to interact with the Earth."
Jelly also tried connecting the dots to what led him to feel so entitled back then in the first place.
"It's deep-rooted insecurities early. I was always a bigger kid. So I had a little chip on my shoulder naturally as a young kid," Jelly recalled of his childhood in Antioch, Tennessee, and how the "active" neighborhood played a part.
The singer said he looked for "acceptance," and "the streets will always give it to you."