Jelly Roll has addressed the backlash he received after meeting President-elect Donald Trump at a UFC event last month.
The Grammy-nominated singer, whose legal name is Jason DeFord, discussed the interaction during a recent appearance on the “Dumb Blonde” podcast, hosted by his wife, Alyssa DeFord, 44.
“Meeting President Trump was cool,” the 40-year-old singer said during the Dec. 16 episode.
“Ultimately, I don’t really care about any blowback I get about it. The truth is, it was really cool to meet the president ... I was honored.”
The “Save Me” crooner can also be seen greeting Donald Trump Jr. and billionaire businessman Elon Musk at the UFC fight, which took place less than two weeks after the presidential election.
Some social media users offered their support for the exchange online.
Others expressed their disapproval.
Speaking to his wife of eight years, Jelly Roll said he wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to meet a president-elect, regardless of their political affiliation.
“If I would have gotten a call to go meet with Joe Biden at any point, I would have stopped what I was doing to go meet him. That’s the active president. I wouldn’t have cared what people thought, even what I think about his policies,” the musician said.
“I don’t hide behind the ‘I’m not political’ stuff. I’m not political,” he continued.
Respect for ’the Hardest Job in the World’
Elsewhere in the conversation, Jelly Roll recounted his experiences with politics growing up.“I didn’t grow up in a voting culture. My father didn’t push voting on me. My mother didn’t push voting on me.”
He said that his parents did instill respect for what he called “the hardest job in the world.”
“When I look back at my relationship with politics, like, we didn’t watch election night. I don’t have one memory of us, like, as a family, really [caring] who was getting elected.”
The rapper-turned-country star remarked that he has acquired much of the political knowledge he has today by listening to podcasts.
“I watched quite a few hours of Trump podcasts, and I still didn’t have enough information about his policies, frankly, to be like, ‘I’m going to vote for this guy,’” he said.
In addition to Musk and Trump’s eldest son, the president-elect’s other cabinet picks were present at the UFC fight.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who was tapped alongside Musk to help lead the department of government efficiency, was in attendance, joined by Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his pick for secretary of health and human services.
Jelly Roll said he thought it was “cool” that Kennedy had been selected to helm the federal health agency role.
“I liked Robert Kennedy because he was really for addicts, and he was really for changing food, and he was really for like broken America, my people, our people,” the singer said.
“He works the steps. He sponsors people. I mean, this dude’s a real recovery story.”
Jelly Roll, who released his latest album, “Beautifully Broken,” on Oct. 11, has been open about his past struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, including multiple arrests for drug-related offenses.
