Country Star Jelly Roll Has Major Regrets About His Many Tattoos

Jelly Roll, born Jason Bradley DeFord, is riding high after his New Artist of the Year award at the 2023 CMA Awards. While he's at the pinnacle of his career as a country artist, he's somewhat different from his counterparts. For one thing, there's his background as an ex-con drug dealer who sold mixtapes from his car. He's also instantly recognizable thanks to his inked face, full-sleeve tattoos, and a showcase of about 100 tats. SiriusXM host Storme Warren shared that Jelly Roll is just as much a country singer as any other thanks to his storytelling ability and relatability. He stated, per The New York Times, "Some traditional country music fans might be scratching their heads at his image and style of music, but I think they'll come around when they realize he's the real deal."

Jelly Roll gave fans a tour of some of the ink adorning his body, telling "Good Morning America" that his favorite tattoo is the cross on his face, with his music tattoo coming in second. He shared that his first face tattoos were the teardrops. "I got those when I was probably 17. They were my first face tattoos," he said in the clip posted on GMA's TikTok. Jelly Roll also divulged the story behind the skyline tattoo on his neck.  He laughed, "I had 'surviving the struggle' tattooed on my neck, and I left the 't' out." He had the misspelled tattoo on his neck "forever" until he eventually covered up the bungled artwork. 

Jelly Roll opened up about his tattoos in an interview with Jason Bailey on "Audacy Check In." When asked if he regretted any of his ink, he said, "Oh, 96 percent of them. I have more tattoo regrets than I do 'Man I'm glad I got this' ... How you think when you're 16 years old and how you think when you're 36 are so dramatically far apart from each other. It's embarrassing... I've got a Gerber baby smoking a joint on my arm. I don't know who authorized this in my life, or who was around me at this moment, but I hate them."

Even the way Jelly Roll thought about himself in 2016 is a far cry from what he's accomplished today. When Vice interviewed rapper Whitney Peyton, the then-32-year-old Jelly Roll also weighed in about what he thought his prospects were. He said, "We're not radio artists." About Peyton, he added, "She might be." Oh, how time has changed his career trajectory!

Incidentally, in the same interview, he also shared that he regretted the "Penelope" tattoo on his upper chest that he got when he was just 17 years old. Thanks to a promise he made to his wife, he finally got rid of it.

Jelly Roll's wife, Bunnie XO, has standards, and the artist has complied to keep mama happy. The country musician had a prominent tattoo of an ex-girlfriend named Penelope front and center on his chest, and apparently, both Jelly Roll and Bunnie had issues with the artwork. Jelly Roll told Vice, "Do you know how bad that [tattoo] hurt?" before sharing his explicit thoughts about his teenage love. 

As for Bunnie, she was not exactly thrilled that her husband was walking around with another woman's name on his chest. Jelly Roll took to social media in 2018 to show the receipts that he's a man of his word. "I promised my wife shortly after we got married 2 years ago I would get this covered up," he wrote. "Today I did it." The singer had placed a daggered black heart over his ex's name. Bunnie reposted the photo and replied, per Facebook, "Later, Penelope." 

But the "Son of a Sinner" singer is still adding to his collection of tattoos, so he obviously doesn't regret them entirely. In September, Jelly Roll got a new tattoo of Bunnie XO's logo. The cute bunny ears with the letters "XO" personify her slaying, cheeky brand. She posted the video on TikTok, saying, "When he misses you so much he gets another Bunnie tattoo." We ship a couple who are absolutely besotted with each other.