Country superstar Jelly Roll is the father of two: 15-year-old daughter Bailee Ann, whom we know through his music, and 7-year-old son Noah Buddy. Both have a different mother, with those moms' relationships with Jelly Roll predating his marriage to Bunnie XO.
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With dad Jelly Roll telling his warts-and-all story frequently through songs and interviews and stepmom Bunnie XO becoming just as candid through her "Dumb Blonde" podcast, we know a decent amount about both kids as well as their mothers.
Jelly Roll credits parenthood as one of the calming forces that changed his life after serving time in prison for armed robbery and drug charges. So, even when he's not singing about them directly, there's a piece of Bailee Ann and Noah Buddy in their dad's autobiographical lyrics.
"I could no longer be selfish. There was something that was solely relying on me," he told St. Louis radio station 105.7. "I knew that that was an important task. So I wanted to take it seriously. And I did. I take it very seriously to this day."
Images of and public appearances by both children remain rare, which makes our occasional glimpses at that side of Jelly Roll's life all the more sweet.
Read on to meet Jelly Roll's two kids.
Bailee Ann
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Bailee Ann was born on May 22, 2008. Her then 23-year-old dad was incarcerated at the time.
"A guard knocks on my cell door midafternoon during lockdown. He goes, 'You had a kid today,'" Jelly Roll told "Billboard." "I've never had nothing in life that urged me in the moment to know that I had to do something different. I have to figure this out right now."
Jelly Roll was released from prison in time for Bailee Ann's second birthday. He's been a constant presence in her life since then. After his 2016 marriage to Bunnie XO, the couple was given custody of Bailee Ann.
"I had an extra, interesting, traumatic childhood. Bunnie did, my dad did. They're important reasons for why my mom is in my life now and is sober," Bailee Ann said in the Hulu documentary "Jelly Roll: Save Me." "As a teenager, I've moved on. I've worked through my childhood. But that doesn't make it go away. It made me who I am today."
A songwriter herself, Bailee Ann wrote "Tears Could Talk" at age 10. It appears on her dad's 2010 album "A Beautiful Disaster" as a father-daughter duet. Both appear in its music video. During a summer Backroad Baptism tour stop in Alpharetta, Ga., Bailee Ann joined her dad onstage for a live duet of the song.
Noah Buddy
Noah Buddy was born on Aug, 23, 2016. One of Jelly Roll's rare posts about his son followed two days later.
"God Bless this Child to be everything I am not!," the singer wrote in the caption. "Noah Buddy DeFord! I pray he nor Bailee ever have to pay for their father's sins."
Noah Buddy gets mentioned less in interviews than his sister. That's out of respect for the youngster's mom, Melisa.
"With Bailee, I'm the full-time parent, I'm the judge, the jury and the executioner, when it comes to decisions with her," Jelly Roll told "Taste of Country." "I try not to get in the way of what she [Melisa] is building over there, and I never want to step on her toes, with what she's doing with him, that I want to just respect that boundary."
After a 2022 appearance at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, Jelly Roll shared one of the few photos out there of himself with his son.
"One thing I pride myself on is being rooted in family," Jelly Roll wrote in the caption of an Instagram carousel. "You will almost always see me with my daughter, my wife, and my nieces. I'm very close with my brothers and cousins. I'm close with my sister, my uncle and aunts. This picture means the world to me because I don't talk or post about my son very much, and that's for respect of his mother and her privacy."
