Before he was a renowned country singer, Jelly Roll had a number of run-ins with the law. He was in and out of jail through his youth. However, it turns out he wasn't that good of a criminal.
Speaking with Howard Stern, Jelly Roll said he was terrible at committing crimes and getting away with it. The singer opened up about running away from the police as a teen. It turns out that he didn't get far.
He said, "I was the worst criminal ever. My successfulness of running from the police is 0 and 20. I'll tell you this last funny story, I'll tell about it. I was probably fifteen years old, and I got arrested once, and I was on a Xanax bar, Howard."
He continued, "I've never told this story...but you know how Xanax makes you a little slow anyway? In my mind, when the police pulled us over, I was like, I'm just going to run. So I opened the door, and in my mind, I jumped out and sprinted across the field and almost made it."
It turns out that the police officer ultimately took pity on him. Jelly Roll said, "I was so fat and Xanaxed out that I stood out, got two steps, the cop was standing there watching me, and I fell. He was just laid on top of me. He felt so bad for me he didn't even charge me for trying to run."
Jelly Roll Opens Up About Being In Jail
Previously, Jelly Roll got a bit more serious about his crimes. He acknowledges that he made some serious mistakes in the past that he had to learn from. "I never want to overlook the fact that it was a heinous crime," he told Billboard. "This is a grown man looking back at a 16-year-old kid that made the worst decision that he could have made in life and people could have got hurt and, by the grace of God, thankfully, nobody did."
However, Jelly Roll isn't a big fan of the justice system and how it treats young offenders.
They were talking about giving me more time than I'd been alive," he told Billboard. "I hadn't hit my last growth spurt. I was charged as an adult. Years before I could buy a beer, lease an apartment, get a pack of cigarettes ... I feel like the justice system at that point kind of parked me on my only set path."
Ultimately, it's carried with him for most of his life.
"Imagine changing your life in such a way that you can afford the kind of house in this community I was looking at," he told Billboard. "My money was welcome, but I wasn't, all because of something I did [almost] 24 years ago."
