Jelly Roll Opens Up About What He Used to Tell His Daughter About His Face Tattoos

Jelly Roll wasn’t always so forthcoming about his tattoos.

In an exclusive interview with Taste of Country published on Monday, Jan. 5, the country star, 41, revealed what he used to tell his 17-year-old daughter Bailee’s friends about his face ink.

“When she was in kindergarten it was so funny because all of her little friends would go, ‘What is all that stuff on your face?’ Jelly Roll told the outlet. “I would go ‘You won’t believe this, I only draw this on when I come see y’all so y’all are excited about it.'”

He continued, “Finally, they were like, ‘How do you draw it on the same way every time?’ I said, ‘I got the little sticker things now because I been coming so much.’ ”

The “Save Me” singer also shared that as his daughter got older, some of her friends’ parents wouldn’t let them hang out at their house due to his tattoos.

The star opened up about the misconceptions associated with his collection of ink in his cover story for Men’s Health published on Friday, Jan. 2. When the magazine mentioned that his appearance is a call for attention, he laughed and said it’s “the polar opposite.”

“The way shame sometimes shows itself is not always the way we expect it to be. We think shame is somebody in the streets on their knees, with their head down. But shame sometimes is pride,” he explained.

“Behind real bravado, I can normally find shame. I can normally find guilt. I can normally find insecurity. I was the biggest, the loudest, the toughest, the meanest, the growliest, the fattest,” the musician said, adding that there was “a really, really small, insecure human” behind his walls. “I was that, for sure. Then a by-product of that was I got fat as f—.”

Jelly Roll (whose real name is Jason DeFord) has been undergoing a physical transformation, recently shedding 275 lbs. and shaving his face for the first time in 10 years. He told Men’s Health that he consistently lost between 9 and 15 lbs. each month last year.

The musician has previously spoken about his tattoos. In 2024, he admitted that he regrets getting “almost all” of his tattoos. “Like core philosophies are rooted in my life when I was 17 and now I’m 40, I’m like, ‘What the f— was I thinking?’ ” he told GQ. “I hate them all.”

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In the interview, Jelly Roll shared how his tattoo journey began at age 14 with a simple cross on his right arm. He added that eventually, he started getting his face tattooed along with his body. Some of his tattoos, he said, he received while serving time in prison.