Jelly Roll has never been one to sugarcoat his personal struggles, and his weight loss journey is no exception. The “Save Me” singer, who has shed more than 200 pounds over the past several years, is now candidly admitting that he hit a wall — and slipped back into old habits along the way.
In a recent video shared on his YouTube channel, the 41-year-old country music star got personal about the setbacks he faced during his ongoing wellness journey, including gaining some of that hard-earned weight back.
“I was like, you know what, man? I’ve been working hard for the last three years losing this weight. I’m going to enjoy the holidays,” Jelly Roll said, reflecting on his mindset heading into last year’s holiday season. “And I had a big Thanksgiving meal, and I ate a big birthday meal, and I ate a big Christmas meal and kind of got off the rails. I broke my collarbone about a week before Christmas, a few days before Christmas and that set me down where I had to quit running, quit walking, quit exercising for, you know, some extended period of time.”
He didn’t shy away from the conclusion that followed. “I said all that to say that I have to some degree lost my way,” he added.
Even his high-profile milestone — landing on the cover of Men’s Health — didn’t represent the finish line for the artist. He made that clear when addressing the achievement directly.
“Men’s Health was not the goal. It wasn’t the weight that I wanted to get to to be at maintenance,” he explained. “It’s not my maintenance weight. I’m still about 40 or 50 pounds, maybe 60. I don’t know. I haven’t weighed in. I’ve been avoiding the scale. I’m afraid to see what the scale is going to say from what my actual goal is.”
Now training for the New York City Marathon, Jelly Roll says he’s locked back in and ready to hold himself accountable moving forward.
“I want to get these last 40 or 50 pounds off, and then I eventually want to cut my skin and I eventually want to be on the cover of something crazy like GQ or Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair or Forbes or Time with my shirt off. I know this is getting real silly now, but I don’t know. I just believe there’s this story that a guy can go from 560 pounds to a shirt off picture. It’s absurd.”
When he finally stepped on the scale during the video, the number told a straightforward story — he had gained 12 pounds back, putting him at 276 pounds.
Jelly Roll first began his transformation in December 2022. At the 2023 CMA Awards, he told reporters he was “starting to find a will to live” through the process, emphasizing that he wasn’t chasing a specific number — just committed to “continuing to keep doing the right thing and feeling better.” By the following year, he walked the 2024 CMA Awards red carpet having lost 100 pounds, marking a visible turning point in his public journey.
In a November 2024 interview with People magazine, he traced the root of his challenges back to something deeper than the number on the scale.
“The battle was with the food addiction, changing the way I’ve looked at food for the last 39 years,” he shared. “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.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with disordered eating or food-related challenges, support is available through the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) helpline at 1-800-931-2237 or nationaleatingdisorders.org.
The progress continued into 2025. At a fan event in April, he announced he had lost 183 pounds total, drawing cheers from the crowd as he declared, “I started at 540 pounds. I’m 357 pounds this morning, baby.” He also shared a personal motivation for pushing further — losing another 100 pounds so he could go skydiving with his wife, Bunnie XO. In the months that followed, his total loss climbed past the 200-pound mark.
At the 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards in May, he returned to the theme that has defined his journey from the start — the dinner table.
“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.
Source: Jelly Roll’s official YouTube channel; People magazine (November 2024); Fox News Digital coverage of the 2023 and 2024 CMA Awards and the 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards.
