Long before his country music breakthrough in recent years, Tennessee native Jelly Roll was admittedly in a bad place in his life. He was arrested several times during his teenage years and early 20s and spent time in jail on charges including aggravated robbery.
When you look back at the person you once were in a new interview Purposeful with Jay Shetty On the podcast, Jelly Roll reflected on the people he robbed and the pain he caused them over two decades ago. Now he just wants to talk to them and offer his sincerest apologies.
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“I really want to chat with them. I thought about reaching out to them,” he said. “That was 24 years ago. I don't know how to start this or how to move on because sometimes I wonder if they might have seen me in passing or if they know about my condition. I wonder if there's a correlation between success, obviously I've changed dramatically, dude, what do you mean Do you understand what I want? […] My voice was still high when I committed that robbery. “I've been thinking about this a lot and they're definitely on my list.”
“I didn't have anything to take from anyone,” he continued. “The authority I have is that the world owes me money and I can come and take its stuff. What a terrible, terrible way to look at life and people. What a terrible way to interact with the world.”
The hit artist has spent a full 180 years on his life in the years since. He tried to make a positive impact in other ways, including performances in prisons. He just hopes that once he can show this to his victims and take responsibility for his past actions.
“I hope they see that I have made it my life's mission to change and transform people because that is what I represent most in the work I do,” he said. “I think people applaud me because they see a piece of me in them, or they see their cousin; I'm a family member, they say, and I speak for an unnamed group of people, and I hope they know that too.”
“I am diligently trying to prove to myself that I have not only changed, but that I take the platform seriously and that it changes me more and more every day,” he added. “I hope they forgive me.”
Needless to say, Jelly Roll doesn't look back on these teenage years with pride. “I look back on those years and I'm so ashamed to talk about them,” he said. “I was a really terrible kid until my mid-twenties. People always say, 'You're the nicest guy I've ever met.' 'I'm so glad you haven't met anyone who knew me 20 years ago.' I said.”
“I took zero responsibility for anything in my life,” he continued. “If you ask what happened, I immediately started everything except myself. And it took me years to break him, just like years of work, solid work to break it. It also took years of work to even forgive that kid.”
Today, Jelly Roll's focus is on his career and improving himself in every aspect going forward. last album Beautifully Broken It dropped on October 11th and will be traveling across the country on the Beautifully Broken Tour this fall.