While a top name in country music, Jelly Roll spent years changing his life. Once dealing with addiction and a life behind bars, he eventually turned it all around. Using that pain and suffering to inspire his songs, the singer struck a chord with countless fans. Although able to look back on those hard times as a teaching moment, Jelly Roll got emotional when he revealed how his teen daughter, Bailee, saw her biological mother’s mugshot for the first time.
Appearing on The Pivot podcast, Jelly Roll once again showed his emotional side when discussing his past and the impact it had on his daughter. Never one to shy away from talking about the hard subjects, he admitted, “The other day, I think my wife hit me, or somebody did, and they said, ‘Hey man, call and check on the kid [Bailee] later. And they sent a link. It was a news article that her mother had went back to jail, had got caught with, like, meth or something.”
Insisting that the moment truly “affected her life”, Jelly Roll hated seeing how the decisions of Bailee’s mother impacted her. “It broke my daughter’s heart, you know what I’m saying? It broke her heart. This is a 16, 17-year-old that knows her mother is a drug addict, but like, her having to see the mugshot of her mother with just meth ate up on her face.”
Jelly Roll Blames Himself For Daughter’s Pain
With Jelly Roll trying not to break down over the conversation, he pushed forward, explaining how he could do nothing but watch. “I watched her go through it all over again. I was like, ‘Ah, man,’ I forgot ’cause I’m like, I’m 40 and I’ve done a lot of therapy and I’ve done a lot of work and I have a relationship with God that it hurt me, but I just got to pray about it and move on.” He continued, “But I was like, ‘Ah, man, she’s 16, she don’t have any of those tools. She’s still gaining those tools. This hurts her.”
Blaming himself for the anxiety and depression Bailee struggled with, Jelly Roll turned to his faith to guide himself and his daughter through the healing process. Not able to change the past, the singer only hoped to gain the skills to help his daughter move forward.
