Jelly Roll could soon have a clean criminal record. Nashville Sheriff Daron Hall has been vocal about Jelly Roll receiving a pardon for crimes he committed when he was a teenager.
Hall reveals that the Tennessee Board of Parole unanimously voted in favor of the “Liar” singer receiving a pardon, which means the decision now rests with Governor Bill Lee.
“A year ago, I wrote Governor Bill Lee asking for a full pardon for Jason ‘Jelly Roll’ Deford…..today the Board unanimously recommended his Pardon,” Hall shares on social media. “It’s now in the hands of our Governor.
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Jelly Roll spent several years in and out of prison for various charges, including a felony conviction, for armed robbery, which he received when he was just 16 years old. Jelly Roll at the time could have never predicted the almost miraculous way he would end up turning his life around, but still be hindered by his former charges.
“This felony carries with me,” Jelly Roll tells CBS Sunday Morning. “It’s sad. It prohibits me from a lot, and a lot of stuff that I didn’t think it was going to prohibit me from, but it really does prohibit me a lot. I finally got a passport, and I was so excited that America was wililng to let me leave. And I didn’t realize that other countries had to let me come. That’s my new hurdle.
“We had a No. 1 in Australia for three weeks this year,” he continues. “We could probably go to Australia and do arenas, and I’m not able to go right now. We could probably go to the UK and do arenas, and I can’t go. We could probably go to Canada and do arenas, but they won’t let me go. So it’s so funny that, here I am becoming a global artist, and I’m restricted still to my own yards.”
While Jelly Roll deeply regrets the crimes he committed, he acknowledges he could not yet understand the repercussions of his actions, due to his age.
“It’s a dream killer. It’s the automatic dream killer,” Jelly Roll says on Q With Tom Power. “My felony happened to me when I was 16, which is two years before you’re an adult, and they charged me as an adult in that moment. So even then, I wish I had really the brain to understand what my lawyer was trying to explain to me when he was saying, ‘Hey man, in the state of Tennessee, when you get one of these, you can never get it off your record. You can never get it expunged. It’s on your record forever.”
Jelly Roll committed to making a change after finding out, while still in prison, that he was a father to his daughter, Bailee Ann, now 16 years old. Not only did Jelly Roll turn his life around, but he became a country music superstar, who has recently shed almost 200 pounds. Even Jelly Roll’s biggest dreams couldn’t have imagined the life he has now.
“It is more than a dream,” Jelly Roll tells Entertainment Tonight. “I would not have dreamed this. If you think this is my dream, you think I’m a lot more confident than I [am]. You should have met me earlier. I was not that confident. I just dreamed not to die in prison. I had one dream, and it was just not get a life sentence. So anything outside of that has been the icing on the cake.”