Jelly Roll Reveals What Trump Told Him in That Viral Video

On a new episode of Bunnie Xo‘s Dumb Blonde podcast, Jelly Roll breaks down his viral — and controversial — meeting with former U.S. president and president elect Donald Trump.

• Jelly met Trump when both men attended a UFC fight at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
• A number of Trump’s cabinet members and friends were also at the event, as were Kid Rock and several other celebrities.
• The internet had strong reactions about Jelly’s meeting with Trump, and some interpreted the moment as the singer sharing his support of the Republican political leader.
• Jelly has steered clear of taking a side on politics in the past, though he has spoken out about issues that mean a lot to him, including the fentanyl crisis.

In the video, you can see Trump leaning in to say something to Jelly — but of course, it’s loud at the event, so it’s impossible to tell what the interaction was just from watching the clip.

Read More: Jelly Roll Met Trump + Fans Have Strong Feelings on It

But now, Jelly’s ready to tell all — or at least, some — of what went down when the two men met face to face.

A little bit of backstory here: Jelly says that Trump initially walked past him when he walked in, and he figured the president elect had no idea who he was. He admits he felt a little “sad” that he wasn’t going to get to meet Trump. But one of the members of his group reassured him it would happen, and a little later on, they were across the room when Trump and Jelly made eye contact.

“What you don’t see in the video is he gave me the Trump point,” Jelly says with a laugh and a halfhearted imitation.

Trump motioned for the singer to come over, which he did, and they greeted with a hug.

“And he puts his hand on my shoulder … and he’s like, ‘I love ‘Save Me,”” Jelly recounts, referencing his big hit duet with Lainey Wilson. “He’s like, ‘I love ‘Save Me.’ You’re doing incredible things.'”

That wasn’t the end of the conversation: Jelly says Kid Rock, who was standing nearby, pulled the “ultimate homie move” in what he said to Trump next. But the exact details of Rock’s statement are still a mystery, since Jelly redacted his quote in the final edit of Bunnie’s podcast.

As for whether or not that meeting was an expression of Jelly’s Trump support? He says it’s really not that simple. The singer’s long said he’s not political, and he doubled down on that in his latest conversation, adding that he doesn’t like to talk about the elements of political policy that he doesn’t understand.

Read More: Jelly Roll Was Accused of Satanism — Here’s How He Responded

“I didn’t grow up in a voting culture. My father didn’t push voting on me. My mother didn’t push voting on me,” he goes on to say. “They did push ‘Respect our president’ on me, though. My father was real big about, you know, ‘… That’s the hardest job in the world. Respect whoever has it.'”

Jelly says there are certain politicians that he resonates with on specific issues, naming Robert F. Kennedy. Jr. and his background as an addict who’s been through recovery as an example.

But most importantly, he says that he was raised to jump at the chance to meet any U.S. president, no matter what side of the aisle they come from.

“If I had gotten a call at any point to go meet Joe Biden, I would have stopped what I was doing to go meet him. That’s an active president,” he explains. “I wouldn’t care what people thought about, or even what I think about his policies.”