Jelly Roll has revealed that, at his heaviest weight, he felt like he had only months to live.
During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Jelly Roll opened up about the fear he felt when he weighed 500 pounds.
"I don't think I'm making this up when I say I think I was six to 12 months away from missing it,” Jelly Roll told the titular host at around the 2:00:50 hour mark. He revealed that he started taking his weight loss seriously a couple of years ago in advance of his 40th birthday. He’s now 41.
"I knew my next one was 40. … I don't think I've ever met a 500-pound 40-year-old." He added, "I was like, 'Man, I should really start trying to figure this out. I could feel myself dying.”
He also shared that touring at that weight was difficult.
"I travel 280 days a year. At 500-something pounds, 200-something flights a year, 250 flights a year?" he said.
The rapper and singer started with taking 10,000 steps a day by walking the venues where he played, doing cold plunges, and playing in basketball tournaments set up by his band during tour.
His sex life with his wife, Bunnie XO, was also motivational for him.
“I couldn’t even get aroused. I was so big,” he told Rogan.
Since 2022, the singer has lost almost 200 pounds. Last year, he said one of his new goals was to be on the cover of a health magazine for his physique.
“I want to be on the cover of Men’s Health by March of 2026,” Jelly Roll said on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast in 2024. “That's my new goal. I wanna have one of the biggest transformations."
