Jelly Roll Warns Not to Don’t Cut Corners on Tattoos

Jelly Roll is no stranger to body art. His tattoos cover his arms, face, and most of his body—including a bold “Music Man” inked across his forehead and a cross under his eye. But these days, the musician admits he has mixed feelings about many of them.

Ladt year, in a sit-down interview with GQ, Jelly Roll gave fans an honest look into the stories behind his tattoos—how he got them, what they meant to him at the time, and why so many no longer reflect the person he is today.

Right from the start, he didn’t hold back. “I regret 98% of these tattoos. 97%… almost all of them. Like core philosophies I rooted my life in when I was 17…now I’m 40. I’m like, ‘What the ---- was I thinking?’”

Some tattoos just didn’t age well. One that even he admits was a bit much? A baby smoking a blunt. “Maybe the baby smoking a blunt was a little bit much.”

While that one remains, many others have been covered up over the years. For example, a large tattoo of Nashville’s Batman Building now hides a spelling mistake from an earlier design.

“I had ‘Surviving the struggle,’ but we had forgot to put the ‘T’ so it, so it said ‘Surviving the sruggle.’”

Jelly Roll got his first tattoo at just 14, in memory of a woman from his neighborhood who had passed away. That marked the beginning of what would become a long journey of ink. But not all of it was meaningful—or well done.

Still, one tattoo that continues to carry weight for him is the cross on his face. “As cliche as it is, is probably the big cross. It was symbolic of change in me. It was symbolic of a new beginning, understanding that I needed to bear my own cross. I need to carry my own cross as the Good Book says, so that was kind of a constant reminder.”

As he's grown older, Jelly Roll now sees how important it is to choose quality over impulse when it comes to tattoos. Some of his were done in trade—including one where he exchanged a small amount of low-quality weed—and the outcome, he says, shows it.

“That’s probably one of the few I’d keep. I love my cross, I love my slash… so listen to me, if you’re out there listening to this this morning and you’re under the age of 25 and you’re considering getting tattoos, I’d like to give you some wisdom that nobody gave me. We will spend $300 on a pair of shoes that will go bad in six months, or we’ll lose them. But as soon as a motherf------ wants $400 an hour to tattoo you, we’re out. Thousand dollars an hour? No way. You know what I mean?

I have a tattoo on my arm that I gave somebody like a quarter sack of bad weed for, and it looks like a quarter sack of bad weed tattoo. They look decent, cause they’re all grouped together, so you’re like, they don’t look horrible Jelly. It’s like, until you dissect them and zoom in, you’re like, these suck bad. It’s just bad art. There’s just no other way to say it.”

Another clip, recently shared online—sparked a fresh wave of interest in Jelly Roll’s tattoo stories. And even now, as he reflects on his past, the message stays the same: if he had the chance, he wouldn’t get most of them again. He really does wish he’d never gotten 98% of them.