Jelly Roll got serious during his final monologue as guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” fighting back tears as he rejected the political labels placed on him.
Specifically, during Thursday’s opening address, the country singer reflected on his viral Grammys speech, in which he said, “Jesus is not owned by one political party.” However, when he declined to expand upon this stance in the Grammys press room, calling himself a “dumb redneck,” people made plenty of assumptions about his beliefs.
“For the for the last six months, I’ve watched people decide who I am, what I am, what I believe, what I support and what I don’t support,” the Grammy winner sounded off. “And I felt that even more this week, just because I told a couple of jokes. And honestly, this goes back further for me, y’all. This goes back to February this year.”
Jelly Roll called the 2026 Grammys “the single greatest moment and the greatest honor of my career,” adding, “I got called on that stage. I got handed an award that I’ve been dreaming about since I was a child. And immediately after, I was asked to make what I felt at the time was a political stance. I fumbled my words.”
“Looking back, I don’t necessarily regret asking for more time before I spoke,” he added. “I wish more people took more time before they spoke. But I do wish I had found the words to express my heart just a little bit sooner. But I was afraid that anything I was going to say was going to be immediately taken as a political statement. And ironically, by trying so hard not to make a political statement, I became one.”
Per Jelly Roll, he has spent his “entire career” avoiding belonging to a political party, noting, “partly because until March of this year, I wasn’t even allowed to vote.”
However, Jelly Roll indicated that he was motivated to exercise that right soon, sharing with the studio audience that he plans to vote in November.
“It’s simple for me, y’all. I always wanted the recovering addict, the felon who is trying to change his life, the single mama working a double hard for her family, and everybody else that ever felt forgotten to know that I represent those without representation,” he said. “And speaking for those people is what I believe my calling is. I’ve always tried to be a voice for the voiceless because I know those people. Those are my people. I try to speak for the unspoken.”
Jelly Role defended that at the Grammys he felt he was speaking for those who were “scared, hurting and felt like nobody was speaking for them.”
“I had a microphone and I didn’t use it the right way,” he said, taking a moment to fight back his tears. “But my daddy always told me it is never too late to do the right thing. So, I’m going to try to do the right thing, right now, because human dignity isn’t Republican nor Democrat. Compassion isn’t left-wing and mercy isn’t right-wing. Pain and healing knows no partisanship. Hurting hearts are more important than poll numbers. And there are no boundaries or borders for broken families.”
Jelly Roll, who described himself as a “man of second chances” and a “man of faith,” took a moment to advocate for the “American Dream,” defending it “should be for everybody.”
“I can’t read the Gospels without being confronted by the words of Jesus himself when he said, ‘When I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me a drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me in,’” he noted. “That’s what Jesus said. He also gave us two commandments: love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And that’s what I should have said that night. There wasn’t an asterisk after neighbor. There wasn’t a political party exemption. It did not require us to know what country you were born in. There wasn’t a sentence afterward that said, ‘Unless you’re afraid of them.’ It just said, ‘Love your neighbor.’ And I don’t know about y’all, but that’s the standard I want to be held to.”
Before concluding his monologue, Jelly Roll called out political leadership on both the left and the write, stating, “Our leaders on both sides of the aisle are doing an absolute s–t job of trying to bring us together, y’all.”
“We may vote completely differently. But let’s try not to let the couple of things we disagree about forget the hundreds and hundreds of things we have in common,” he shared.
Watch Jelly Roll’s full monologue above.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.
