Jelly Roll proudly showed off his slimmed-down frame after dramatically losing about 200lbs over the past three years.
The 40-year-old began dropping the weight in 2022, making his way from a starting point of 540lbs down to 357lbs by this April.
Now he has posted a photo of himself ready to go onstage at the Grace for the World concert, held in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Sunday.
He joined a glittering array of performers including John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Andrea Bocelli, Karol G, Pharrell Williams and the Thai K-pop star BamBam.
One day after the show, Jelly Roll – whose Christian name is Jason DeFord – uploaded a couple of images of himself in his stage look of a navy bomber jacket over a silver cardigan, teamed with a basic black t-shirt and trousers.
‘I can fit in Louis Vuitton now. Pray for my bank account,’ he joked in his caption to his more than five million followers on Instagram.
Jelly Roll proudly showed off his slimmed-down frame after dramatically losing approximately 200lbs over the past three years
‘A hundred thousand thank-yous to the legend Skateboard P, his team, and everyone else that had a hand in making last night happen.’
His wife Bunnie XO, whose real name is Alisa DeFord, leapt into the comments section to gush: ‘The hunkiest hunk of them all,’ with a heart eyes emoji.
Last November, Jelly Roll announced he had shed a whopping 110lbs, dropping 60 to 70 of them over the course of his Beautifully Broken tour that year.
‘It’s cool because there was once a time in life that the culture I built on tour was the opposite. It revolved around alcohol and drugs,’ he told People.
‘And now our tour culture is around good eating and around exercising and doing emotional check-ins with our crew every day.’
He shared that he had to wage a ‘battle’ against a ‘food addiction,’ an undertaking that involved ‘changing the way I’ve looked at food for the last 39 years’
Jelly Roll, whose stage name comes from a nickname his mother gave him because of his size, said: ‘I’ve never had a healthy relationship with food, so that was the hard part. But once you get into that discipline and commitment, it’s like an avalanche. Once that little snowball started rolling, it was on its way.’
During his upbringing in the Antioch area of Nashville, ‘Nobody in my house ever had [a healthy relationship with food], so that was the hard part, really fighting that demon at first and getting into that discipline and that commitment,’ he said.
The 40-year-old began dropping the weight in 2022, making his way from a starting point of 540lbs down to 357lbs by this April
Now he has posted a photo of himself ready to go onstage at the Grace for the World concert, held in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Sunday; pictured performing at the show
Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason DeFord, is pictured in October 2021, the year before he embarked on his weight loss process from a starting point of 540lbs
Last November, Jelly Roll announced he had shed a whopping 110lbs, dropping 60 to 70 of them over the course of his Beautifully Broken tour that year; pictured that month
This April, he went public with a new weight loss milestone while speaking with NFL star-turned-sportscaster Pat McAfee for his Big Night Aht show.
‘I started at 540lbs and I was 357lbs this morning,’ he crowed. ‘I’m gonna lose another 100lbs and go skydiving with my wife in Sweden, baby.’
Last month he delivered a speech to his hometown NFL team the Tennessee Titans and revealed he had officially arrived at another weight loss milestone.
‘I ride for this team. I can’t get on the field, but goddamn, I’m close. I lost 200lbs. I told coach, I’m getting a contract if I lose another 50!’ he joked, to a round of applause.
