Jelly Roll says life was ‘never-ending sadness’ before 275-pound weight loss: ‘I was a prisoner to my own body’

"Every decision I made in life had to be based on my weight," said the singer, who dropped from 540 pounds in 2020 to 265 pounds by November 2025.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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January 3, 2026 3:08 p.m. ET

Jelly Roll in December 2025. Credit:

Michael Loccisano/Getty

- Jelly Roll opened up about losing 275 pounds over the course of five years.

- The singer said life at his heaviest was "never-ending sadness" and "anger."

- The musician's fitness journey began after he started "treating food like an addiction."

Jelly Roll is reflecting on his 275-pound weight loss.

The "Need a Favor" singer recently opened up about his fitness journey, which saw him dropping from 540 pounds in 2020 to 265 pounds by November 2025.

"It was never-ending sadness," Jelly Roll said of life at his heaviest in a new cover story for *Men's Health*. "And anger. I was a prisoner to my own body. Dude, wiping my ass was a problem. Washing myself properly was a problem. Getting in cars."

He continued, "Every decision I made in life had to be based on my weight. If it could hold me, facilitate me, or fit me — people don't think about every facet of 'I still want to be able to do that and I can't.' I was so inspired by that kind of stuff."

Jelly Roll for 'Men's Health'.

AB + DM for Men’s Health

After several false starts, the singer began his path toward better fitness, aiming to get healthy rather than prioritize weight loss specifically. To achieve his goals, he consulted with numerous nutritionists, doctors, and other medical personnel.

"Even before I got into getting my blood work done, I went and got mental health therapy about my overeating," Jelly Roll explained, noting how therapy helped him reframe his situation. "I started treating my food addiction like what it was: an addiction. Why did I treat cocaine a certain way? I went to meetings for cocaine and found a sponsor and detoxed off of it and shit myself and went through real hard life-changing emotional choices to get off cocaine and codeine."

The singer said viewing his eating habits that way helped him shift his perspective and behavior. "I didn't look at the food addiction different," he said. "Once I started treating food like an addiction, it started changing everything for me. When I started really looking at the source of why I was eating, what was I eating for?"

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Jelly Roll also got candid about one of the side effects of his earlier weight battles. "My testosterone level — and I'm cool to talk about this openly — was of a preteen boy," he said. "When I went in there for the test, it was bad. Bad. The world opened up when I seen it on paper. I was like, That's my testosterone level? I mean, dude, we're talking a 57." (The typical testosterone range for a man between 35 and 39 is 352-478 ng/dL, according to a 2022 study.)

The singer, who has been married to Bunnie Xo since 2016, said his low testosterone impacted his love life. "You can't get it up without T," he said. "I was married to a smoke show, and I was still struggling."

Jelly Roll in 2023.

Jelly Roll added that his initial blood tests showed staggering results for his cholesterol and blood sugar levels. "The first couple of blood panels were like, how are you alive?" he recalled.

The musician also advised that weight loss usually has to happen one step at a time, and that many fitness aspirations are too ambitious. "A lot of dudes get to their bottom dollar, and we're like, 'I'm changing! Tomorrow in the morning when I wake up, I'm a different person!'" he said. "We attack it all at once. 'I'm gonna run! I'm gonna lift! I'm gonna eat right. I'm gonna do this and this and this.' Listen, man, because I've done this before: Just pick one of those."

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In his mind, one discipline is more important than the rest. "You know which one you need to pick? Food," Jelly Roll said. "Start there. F--- everything else. Just commit yourself to, 'I'm gonna count every calorie and macro that goes in my mouth.' "**

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