The Nashville native didn’t come up with the Jelly Roll moniker himself.
“And my mother named me that whenever I was a little chubby kid,” Jelly Roll said.
“Been fat my whole life.
“I was like, ‘My momma calls me Jelly Roll!’
[My mom] called me her little Jelly Roll.”
Jelly Roll also explained how stage names and nicknames aren’t the same thing.
He continued, “You don’t get to pick your nickname.
You get to pick your stage name.
He talked more about some friends from his old neighborhood and their unfortunate nicknames.
Nicknames were a topic of discussion when Jelly Roll sat down withHoward Sternin June 2024 as well.
The singer joked that he might have turned out differently if his mother nicknamed him “Slim Jim.”
Jelly Roll’s father, Horace “Buddy” DeFord, sadly died in 2019.
He also talked about how he loved when she watched him perform.
He added, “But she’s watching from home man.
… She’s FaceTimed me 10 times today already.”
He held up his phone so the cameras could see.
When Frazier said, “We wish you were here tonight!”
Donna said, “I do too, I wish I could’ve been there too.”
