Question: if you lose Jelly Roll, have you lost a huge chunk of American voters?
The country music singer-rapper, who collected three Grammy Awards earlier this year, completed his fourth and final appearance Thursday as guest host of Jimmy Kimmel Live. This is the second summer in a row he’s been tapped to work the late shift, and judging by the ovation he got at the start of Thursday night’s monologue, he’s won over a lot of new fans.
Well known for sporting several facial tattoos, including a cross, on his face, Jelly Roll knows he’s not your usual broadcast network talk show temp. “I look more like a guy getting a DUI on a tractor,” he joked– right after showing a clip where his identity was a complete blank to three Jeopardy! contestants.
There are many more hilarious one-liners in the clip from Thursday night’s show, as you can watch above. Props, therefore, to Jelly Roll for taking jokes written by Kimmel’s staff and scoring with every one of them. For somebody who is not a seasoned stand up comedian, he’s right up there with John Candy– as SCTV’s “the guy with the snake on his face”– in terms of over-inked mirth makers.
As much as Jelly was on a roll, he was also there Thursday night to make a point. He got very serious in the final part of his 18-minute monologue — so serious you could almost hear FCC chairma Brendan Carr squirming in his viper’s den.
Mister Roll (real name: Jason Bradley DeFord) joked about his week long stint working with Kimmel’s staff, who he called, “the kindest, most talent group of Chihuahua-hugging, oat milk latte lefties on God’s great earth.” His point, however, was that the American Dream should be for everybody.
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“I am a man of second chances,” he said, referencing earlier convictions, dating back to his teen years and mainly drug related, that led to him losing his voting rights until a recent pardon from Tennessee governor Bill Lee.
The 41-year-old expressed some regret after a halting comment he made at a post-Grammy Awards interview seemed to divide his fan base. The singer says he’s tried his whole life to steer clear of political comments, but he felt he could not pass up this late night opportunity to speak out against political divisiveness.
“I will always shake the hand of the United States president when I’m asked,” he said. “I’m also proud that I live in country where I can make jokes about him. Ain’t that what’s great about being an American? The democracy? The freedom of speach??”
The studio audience responsed with thunderous applause.
Jelly Roll concluded by evoking words of wisdom handed down by his late father, a Marine veteran, who reminded his son on his deathbed that it was “never too late to do the right thing.” It was a point the singer made twice, and both times he was as weepy as Kimmel ever got.
Kudos to Jimmy for showing the way and sharing his pulpit and to ABC for having both their backs. Make no mistake: Jelly Roll was not taking sides; in what has been a poisonous, pre-election atmosphere, he is campaigning against divisiveness. As he points out, “leaders on both sides of the aisle are doing an absolute shit job of bringing us all together y’all.”
Speaking days after the death of Dolly Parton, his words seem to be riding on a wave of reflection about right and wrong in America. As more and more reports surface about her random acts of kindness, there is great evidence that the Queen of Country Music lived a “Love Thy Neighbour” kind of life. On Thursday night, Jelly Roll said through tears that these were words his father always tried to live by.
I found Jelly Roll’s appearance on Kimmel extremely impressive, effective and winning. This wasn’t the usual suspects the White House nastily dismisses as “failed.” This was a guy speaking for others looking for second chances in America. He hails from Dolly Parton’s same red state. With 67 days until the US mid-term elections, it would seem pretty hard to ignore what these two are preaching.
