Jelly Roll Reveals How Many of His Tattoos He Regrets (Hint: It's a Lot)

“I’m like, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ ” the country star told ‘GQ’

Jelly Roll may have liked his tattoos when he got them years ago, but he admits he’s not a big fan anymore.

Reflecting on his inked past, the country singer, 39, opened up about his tattoos in a candid interview with GQ. “I regret 98% of these tattoos, 97, almost all of them. Like the underlying philosophies that were ingrained in my life when I was 17 and now I’m 40, I wonder, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ ” he admitted, looking down at his hands.

I hate them all, continued the star born Jason DeFord.

In an interview, Jelly Roll shared how his tattoo journey began at the age of 14 with a simple cross on his right arm, marking the beginning of a colorful, if sad, ink collection. He added that in the end, everything culminated in the tattooing of his face next to his body. Some of his tattoos, he said, he got while serving time in prison. The singer was in prison about 40 times for various drug charges.

In December, he spoke to PEOPLE about his journey. “I had to learn that you can drink alcohol without cocaine. It took me a long time to learn that,” he said. “I never said that, but it’s true. For a long time I just assumed, when people told me they were drinking without coke, I said, ‘I thought we were only drinking to consume coke.’ ”

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Jelly Roll in Washington DC in December 2023.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty

Among his many tattoos, Jelly Roll shared his least favorite in an interview: a depiction of a baby smoking a blunt. “It was a bit over the top,” he said with a laugh.

The singer also said he underwent extensive cover-ups to correct his past tattoo choice. One particularly embarrassing repair involved correcting a misspelled tattoo that should have read “Surviving the Struggle” on his neck. “But he forgot to put a ‘T,’ so it said ‘Surviving the Struggle,'” he recounts.

“I had a tattoo on my back, what they call a ‘pick-and-poke’, where they just pick and poke it, and it’s Jesus on the cross,” he continued. “And let me tell you how bad it is. The first time a woman saw me shirtless she asked me if I had Elvis tattooed on my back. And I had to let her know, close, but not Elvis, it’s Jesus.”

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Jelly Roll Revisits Former Nashville Jail Cell: ‘There Was a Time in My Life When I Really Thought This Was It’

Jelly Roll at the CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville in November 2023.

Christopher Polk/Variety via Getty

Back in February, the singer starred in an Uber Eats Super Bowl commercial that featured his tattoos.

In the ad, he looks in the mirror and is shocked to see that his face is covered in tattoos. At first glance he says they are “terrible” and then tries to peel them. Before the commercial aired, Jelly Roll told PEOPLE that “there is some truth” to his disparaging comments about his facial tattoos in the ad.

“I don’t think they’re great … I’ve had them so long that sometimes I forget they’re there,” he said, adding that he’s stopped getting tattoos. “I don’t have any more room to put them.”

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Source: HIS Education