Jelly Roll Warns Young Fans About Cheap Tattoos

Jelly Roll is known for his music—and his ink.

But in a resurfaced video from The Howard Stern Show, the country star is urging young fans not to make the same tattoo mistakes he did.

“I regret 98% of these tattoos. 97%… almost all of them,” he told Stern.

“Like core philosophies I rooted my life in when I was 17… now I’m 40. I’m like, ‘What the **** was I thinking?’”

Jelly Roll has tattoos across his body, including his face.

One of the most noticeable is a cross under his eye, which he says is his most meaningful:

“As cliché as it is, is probably the big cross. It was symbolic of change in me… a constant reminder.”

But not all his tattoos carry the same weight. He once got ink that read “Surviving the sruggle”—a typo that’s since been covered with a Batman Building from the Nashville skyline.

Then there’s the more controversial ink, like a “baby smoking a blunt,” which he now calls “a little bit much.”

And yes, he admits some were done in trade for “a quarter sack of bad weed”—and look like it:

“They look decent, cause they’re all grouped together… until you dissect them and zoom in, you’re like, these suck bad. It’s just bad art.”

Speaking to GQ, Jelly had a message for anyone under 25 thinking about getting tattooed:

“We will spend $300 on a pair of shoes… But as soon as a motherf****** wants $400 an hour to tattoo you, we’re out… That’s some wisdom that nobody gave me.”

It’s advice worth hearing, especially from someone whose tattoos have become such a huge part of his image—whether he likes them or not.

Watch the viral clip from the Stern Show to hear more from Jelly Roll.

Jelly Roll Warns Young Fans About Cheap Tattoos  was originally published on hankfm.com