Jelly Roll shuts down concerns his weight loss would destroy career

(Fox News) – Although he’s spoken at length about being “petrified” of losing his momentum in the industry, country music sensation Jelly Roll says it won’t be his weight that dictates the amount of success he has in the future.

The Nashville, Tennessee, native, who recently embarked on a public weight-loss journey, says he’s confident that his willingness to be open about dropping pounds won’t shed him of his fame.

“I did this publicly for a reason,” he told wife Bunnie Xo, on her “Dumb Blonde” podcast, released Monday. “I want to be honest about my struggles with it with people. I wore it for so long.”

“I think that people that become as big as I became, when they lose the weight, they’re kind of ashamed,” explained the “Save Me” singer, who has lost 100 pounds. “They’re so ashamed that they go and hide and lose the weight, and then they come back out, and they don’t really know how to interact with the world, looking different or feeling different, you know? And they kind of got to find their whole new way.” 

Jelly Roll, who was born Jason Bradley DeFord, says he took the opposite approach. “I wanted to lose it in front of everybody. I wanted to talk about it,” adding that it’s a regular topic of conversation in his daily vlogs he records. 

“This is constantly what I’m putting in the air because I want to bring people along with me.” 

To further his point, Jelly Roll brought up a previous conversation with his wife. “One night you said something to the effect of, ‘Are you worried about the ’fat effect’? And that most Hollywood stars who have lost a large amount of weight ended up not getting placed in their career.”