Jelly Roll is still as smitten with his wife, Bunnie, as he was the day they met. The couple, who just celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary by renewing their vows in the same Las Vegas chapel where they originally got married, might seem like an unlikely match on the outside. But to Jelly Roll, there has always been only one woman for him, and will only be for the rest of his life.

“She’s the best,” Jelly Roll, who wrote “Kill a Man” on Whitsitt Chapel about his wife, gushes to Entertainment Tonight. “I am over the moon with that woman. I don’t see any other woman on earth but her.”

 

It was Bunnie who helped him gain custody of Bailee, an event that had a profound and immediate impact on his life, from the moment she was born.

“She changed my life,” says the singer. “Knowing I had her, it was weird. I never planned on doing anything with my life but being a criminal, until then.”

If not for Bailee, Jelly Roll has no idea where he would be, but it likely wouldn’t be headlining his successful Backroad Baptism Tour, with two No. 1 singles and multiple awards.

 

“I always compare it to the Bible, the story about the Damascus Road experience, where this figure named Paul turned from Saul to Paul,” Jelly Roll tells Fox & Friends. “And it’s almost like he separated the two things from that day forward. From that day forward, I looked at the old me as a different person than Bailee’s father.”

In a by now well-told story, Jelly Roll spent a dozen years in and out of prison, starting as a juvenile delinquent, and ultimately ending up with a felony conviction, tried as an adult. Through all of the highs and lows of his life, of which there were many, it was music that saved him, again and again.

“I think at some point in life, everything in life has let me down, but music was always my consistent,” Jelly Roll says. “When I had nothing else, I had a boom box. When I was incarcerated, I had a set of headphones, and a little radio.”

Jelly Roll recently released his “Save Me” collaboration with Lainey Wilson, celebrating a friendship that began long before either of them had much success in country music.

“The obvious is Lainey is one of my best friends in the music business,” Jelly Roll tells CMT. “Lainey, Ernest, everybody knows my little squad … These are the people I talked to pretty religiously. And, I think it was special that I was the guy that got to show the world that side of Lainey.”

Jelly Roll is nominated for five CMA Awards, including for “Save Me” with Wilson and Male Vocalist of the Year. Find Whitsitt Chapel and all of Jelly Roll’s music and upcoming shows at JellyRoll615.com

Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning will resume their role as hosts of the live ceremony. The 2023 CMA Awards will air live on Wednesday, November 8, at 8:00 PM ET on ABC. More information can be found at CMAAwards.com.

Read ‘Jelly Roll: 11 Things to Know About the Reformed Singer’ here.