Jelly Roll Felt 'Overwhelmed' by His Phone. So, He Threw It into the Cumberland River: 'It Was Too Stressful'
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12/16/2024 05:26 PM
"I realized the phone does not help me be any of the stuff I actually wanna be," said the country star on his wife Bunnie Xo's 'Dumb Blonde' podcast
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Jelly Roll in 2024Jelly Roll might take a while to text back from his flip phone next year.
During the Dec. 16 episode of his wife Bunnie Xo's podcast Dumb Blonde, the "Son of a Sinner" singer spoke about managing stress — which could include a technology break.
"This isn't maybe not the healthy way to do it, but I can confidently tell people I'm not gonna have a phone all of [2025]," Jelly, 40, told his wife of eight years on the podcast.
"I talked about this in interviews all year. I was like, if this [Beautifully Broken Tour] goes the way I want it to, I'm gonna throw my phone off the Shelby Street Bridge," he continued.
One night, Jelly told the driver of the car to take him to the Cumberland River.
"I was getting to a point that I was getting hundreds and hundreds of text messages a day. And I just was overwhelmed," Jelly continued. "And then when I would finally sit down to go back through them, I would just feel like such a bad human for missing them. I was carrying a lot of guilt. This phone was causing me a lot of guilt."
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Jelly Roll in 2024He added that despite loved ones knowing about his busy schedule, he felt bad missing messages.
Bunnie, 44, then clarified Jelly has gotten rid of his phone in the past. "Like, my husband has been throwing phones away," she said, noting that people would sometimes get in touch with her to reach Jelly. "I've had the same number for almost a decade. My husband has had about 17."
Jelly then said he is going to use a "flip phone next year," adding, "It's healthy for me. I would use my phone as a way to [dissociate] as well."
"I would be missing text messages and know there were so many over there that it was too stressful to go check. So I would avoid that by mindless scrolling or, you know, I had these news alerts on my phone, and then we become big news stories all the time," he said. "It's like, I started getting caught up in that."
The "Need a Favor" singer said avoiding text messages doesn't make him "a better person," which he strives to be. "I wanna be a better husband. I wanna be a better father. I wanna be a better human. I wanna be a better artist."
"I realized the phone does not help me be any of the stuff I actually wanna be," Jelly concluded.
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Jelly Roll in 2024Jelly has been outspoken about maintaining relationships in the past. He previously told PEOPLE in November about a rule he and Bunnie maintain in their marriage.
"Fourteen days has been our rule kind of from the beginning," he said. "We actually just implemented that same rule with our 16-year-old [daughter Bailee]."
"Because we realized that we were going a month or two at a time without seeing her, and I was like, this just needs to be family," he added.
