Country singer Jelly Roll reportedly lost at least 200,000 followers after spending a week guest-hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” hurling vulgar insults at President Donald Trump, and telling angry fans to stop listening to his music. Commentator Benny Johnson said his team reached that figure by examining the singer’s accounts through several social-media tracking services. The reported exodus followed days of backlash from the heavily Christian and conservative audience that helped propel Jelly Roll to stardom.
Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason Bradley DeFord, began his latest guest-hosting stint on the ABC late-night program on August 24th. He devoted several minutes of his first opening monologue to attacking Trump over his appearance at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington, D.C. The singer mocked the president’s weight, handling of an American flag, approval ratings, and ceremonial drive around the racetrack.
After showing footage of Trump waving the flag, Jelly Roll exclaimed, “How do you f–k up waving a flag?” He followed that with a dig accusing Trump of liking “only his own race” before comparing the presidential motorcade’s ceremonial lap to a loyalty program at a strip club. The studio audience applauded as the country singer continued working through an extended series of insults aimed at the president.
The insults grew more personal as Jelly Roll discussed his own dramatic weight loss and joked that he had shed the equivalent of an entire Donald Trump. Addressing the president directly, the singer called himself and Trump “fat pigs” before making a crude remark about Trump being able to see his genitals again if he lost weight. He also suggested that most Americans wanted to get rid of Trump, citing the president’s approval ratings as the setup for the joke.
The backlash soon began showing up in Jelly Roll’s follower count. Breitbart News reported that Johnson’s team found “at least 200,000 unsubscribes since he started hosting Jimmy Kimmel.” Johnson did not release a platform-by-platform breakdown, but said his team reached the total after running the singer’s accounts through several tracking services.
Johnson argued that the backlash went deeper than supporters simply becoming offended by a joke about Trump. He said Jelly Roll had “turned on his audience” and accused the singer of betraying the listeners who built his career. Johnson described that audience as largely Christian, concentrated in red states, supportive of America, and favorable toward President Trump.
Watch Jelly Roll’s monologue here:
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Jelly Roll returned to the controversy during another monologue after Trump supporters criticized the performance and began threatening to boycott his music. He said some viewers were angry because he had failed to treat the president with sufficient “reverence and dignity,” then reminded the audience that he performs under the name Jelly Roll. He defended the jokes by saying that political humor was part of hosting a late-night program.
The singer later described himself as a political centrist, saying he leans left on some issues while remaining “pretty down the middle.” He pointed to his Christian faith, country-music career, farming, and bow hunting while denying that appearing on Kimmel’s program meant he shared all of the host’s politics. Jelly Roll also insisted he had knowingly accepted the political firestorm because he did not want fear of being labeled political to keep him from saying what he believed was right.
Rosie O’Donnell praised Jelly Roll after the anti-Trump monologues, while a portion of his longtime audience promised to boycott his music. Jelly Roll directly addressed those listeners during his second night behind Kimmel’s desk. “For those who threatened to stop listening to my music based on my comments last night,” he said, “go right ahead.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.