Last month, millions of TikTok users watched in bemusement as Jelly Roll took drastic measures to disconnect from technology. Shouting “Freedom, baby!” the “Need a Favor” singer hurled his cell phone into the vast depths of the Cumberland River. Jelly’s motivations went beyond creating a hilarious viral moment. He recently explained his thought process to wife Bunnie Xo.
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Jelly Roll Is Cutting the Cord in 2025
If you want to get ahold of Jelly Roll in 2025, you may need to brush up on the art of smoke signals. “I can confidently tell people I’m not gonna have a phone all of ’25,” he said during a recent appearance on wife Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast.
That’s a relatable sentiment in today’s technology-saturated world. Especially when you’re Jelly Roll and receive “hundreds and hundreds of text messages a day” while also playing 58 sold-out arenas along your highly in-demand Beautifully Broken tour.
“And I just was overwhelmed,” he admitted. “I would just feel like such a bad human for missing them. I was carrying a lot of guilt. This phone was causing me a lot of guilt.”
Compounding the problem, the Grammy nominee says he would distract himself with “mindless scrolling.”
[RELATED: Jelly Roll Reveals the Real Reason He Took a Break from Social Media and If He’ll Return]
“Or, you know, I had these news alerts on my phone, and then we become big news stories all the time,” he said. “I started getting caught up in that. It doesn’t make me a better person.”
Although Bunnie’s TikTok post showed a drunken, spur-of-the-moment decision, Jelly says he had actually been planning to ditch his phone for quite some time.
“I talked about this in interviews all year,” he said. “I was like, ‘If this tour goes the way I want it to, I’m gonna throw my phone off the Shelby Street Bridge.’”
Continuing His Health Journey
2024 saw Jelly Roll commit fully to his mental and physical well-being. The “I Am Not Okay” singer also opened up on his wife’s podcast about shedding 110 pounds this year.
He achieved that goal, in part, by switching to a high-protein diet and playing basketball daily with his crew on tour. However, he wanted to emphasize “that I didn’t become successful because of my weight.
“I became successful in spite of it,” Jelly said. “I somehow managed to be this successful carrying 550 pounds. That’s insane.”
(Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Stagecoach)
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