He recently was moved to tears while recounting how weighing over 500 pounds had a devastating effect on his sex life.
And on Wednesday episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Jelly Roll revealed that he feared his heart could give ‘quit any day.’
The 41-year-old rapper-turned-country singer admitted that he decided to get serious about shedding the pounds once he came to a disturbing realization: ‘I could feel myself dying.’
Jelly Roll (real name: Jason DeFord) said he ‘started really considering taking the step to try to make a major change in my life’ around when he turned 39 and began thinking more seriously about his own mortality.
‘I thought about it around my birthday, ‘cause I knew my next one was 40,’ he recalled. ‘You know what, I don’t think I’ve ever met a 500-pound 40-year-old.’
Rogan added, ‘That’s usually when they drop off.’
Jelly Roll, 41, revealed on The Joe Rogan Experience (pictured) on Wednesday that he felt as if he could ‘feel myself dying’ when he topped out around 560lbs before starting his weight-loss journey
Jelly Roll said he feared his heart could ‘quit any day’ because of his weight, which made him get serious about shedding it; pictured in December 2023 in NYC
Jelly Roll admitted that he was living on borrowed time because he felt as if he had ‘already cheated the game.’
‘I’d had multiple heart issues,’ he revealed. ‘I was like, man, I should really start trying to figure this out. I could feel myself dying, Joe.’
Jelly Roll explained that it wasn’t a new desire to lose weight, as he had ‘been trying to lose this weight my whole life,’ though he hadn’t found a way to make a massive impact or to keep the weight off.
He also shared that his weight had extreme fluctuations, and he cited 2022 as an example. Within that year his weight had an 80-pound swing, with him weighing in at his lowest of 480 pounds. and his highest of 560 pounds.
Because of his dangerous size and his extreme weight fluctuations, Jelly Roll decided it was time ‘to take a different approach.’
‘I’m going to really take my time with it and I’m going to think about what I’m doing and be intentional,’ he explained of his thinking. ‘I’m not going to let it be an emotional thing where you just jump up and go, “I’m going to go running today!”
‘I was like, “Let me figure this out,”‘ he said.
Since starting his new weight-loss regimen, Jelly Roll is down an astounding 200 pounds from his 2022 weight.
‘I’d had multiple heart issues,’ he said, before revealing that he had fluctuated between 480lbs and 560lbs in 2022; pictured in 2021 in Nashville, Tennessee
He opted to lose weight with diet and exercise alone, but he had to focus on gradual and lasting changes because of his addictive personality; pictured in September in NYC
He credits his success to major changes in his diet and a significant increase in exercise, but because of his past addictions, he needed to rewire this thinking process about losing weight.
‘Clearly, I’ve dealt with drug addiction. So, I was like, maybe there’s something here,’ he told Rogan.
Jelly Roll said he had an epiphany when he realized that binge eating didn’t necessarily represent a ‘failure of willpower.’
‘It was a biological loop that I didn’t know how to interrupt,’ he shared.
Rogan interject that a food addiction is different from drug or alcohol dependency, because ‘you have to keep doing the thing you’re addicted to’ in order to survive.
Jelly Roll agreed and said that his food addiction was particularly hard to combat because food is ‘everywhere.’
‘Not that crack isn’t everywhere and heroin isn’t everywhere,’ he clarified. ‘There’s not heroin on this table. You know what I’m saying? There’s a cookie on here somewhere.’
The hitmaker added that part of why things got so bad was because he hadn’t planned to be around for very long, so he was focusing on having as much career success as possible before it all came to an end.
He noted how difficult it was to address a food addiction and overeating because food is ‘everywhere,’ and he couldn’t just give it up like drugs or alcohol; pictured in July in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin
He recalled thinking, ‘When I die, at least my kids might be OK and they won’t be ashamed of me.’
Jelly Roll even claimed that, after his last run-in with Rogan, he assumed, ‘I’ll probably never see Joe again.’
‘I’d think, you know, it’ll probably go any day for me. You know what I mean? Like, my heart could quit any day. I could relapse and overdose,’ he recalled thinking.
But his mindset had had a major upgrade since he committed to his weight-loss journey, and he was now looking forward to being a ’70-year-old man’ with his friends and family.
‘It’s going to be cool,’ he said, adding, ‘I never would have thought I could have this kind of life.’
Jelly Roll has denied using GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic or newer-generation medications like Zepbound to help him lose weight.
However, during an appearance in December on his wife Bunny XO’s podcast Dumb Blonde, he clarified that he’s ‘not against Ozempic or any of that stuff.’
‘Every doctor I’ve talked to is for it. They said it helps. I just was afraid of it,’ he shared.
In December, he said on his wife Bunny XO’s podcast that doctors recommended Ozempic-like drugs to him, but he steered clear because a common side effect is acid reflux, which could be devastating for his vocal cords and his singing; seen in July on Jimmy Kimmel live
The singer explained that it was one major side effect that made him steer clear of the popular weight-loss drugs: acid reflux.
‘As a singer, few things scare me more than acid reflux. Like, you’ll watch me get up out of a bed, I’ll burp and wake up panicked and go take something for it,’ he admitted. ‘Because that stuff will just rip the vocal cords.’
Because he’s a singer who relies on his vocal cords being in tip-top shape, it wasn’t worth the possibility of not singing at his best.
‘I just could not afford any acid reflux. So I want to be very clear that I’ve done it naturally, but it wasn’t out of stubbornness or trying to prove a point,’ he clarified. ‘If it helps you, go get it. But for me, I was just petrified of the side effects of it.’
