Jelly Roll Opens Up About Losing Weight Before WWE Match

Rapper and musician Jelly Roll made his pro wrestling debut at WWE SummerSlam 2025 alongside Randy Orton, with the pair taking on Logan Paul and Drew McIntyre. For the match, Jelly Roll was already noticeably slimmer compared to previous appearances and, to date, has come down 160 lbs. since his heaviest in 2020.

In a segment during the latest "WWE Unreal" season, Jelly Roll opened up about his lifelong weight loss struggle. "I was a chunky kid, as you could imagine, like a super fat kid and I loved donuts, and instead of calling me 'Jelly Donut' [my mother] called me 'Little Jelly Roll,' and it just stuck," he said, joking that if his mom called him "Slim Jim" instead, he might be sporting a six pack.

Jelly Roll then claimed that he used to watch celebrities come up in the industry and appear on WWE, making him wonder if he'd ever become famous enough to have the honor to do the same. "It was Monday night 'Raw' in Nashville, 2023. And Randy Orton's there, and it was super, super cool and that was the first time I was like, 'Dude, I'm famous enough, they let me get involved!' So it was really cool," he recalled about his segment where he got physically involved with Dominik Mysterio.

Fast forward to SummerSlam 2024, Jelly Roll remembered trying his hand at John Cena's Five-Knuckle Shuffle, where he realized just how serious his weight-problem now was. "I hang onto a rope and R-Truth's got one arm, Miz has got another arm, and at that moment I realized: I was so big that it took two grown men to get me to stand up," he admitted. "I knew that if I didn't do something, it was going to kill me." Jelly Roll then claimed that leaving SummerSlam 2024 left him determined to not only return the following year, but come back as a different human being.

"I just kind of shot my shot and said, 'Hey, Triple H, I'm losing this weight, man. Like, what's up?' You know what I mean? 'I'm dead serious about this,'" he added about the conversation he had with Paul "Triple H" Levesque to pitch his return to WWE. "I walked into that ring that night, under 300 lbs. for the first time since I was probably fourteen years old," he added. "That exact number? 330 lbs.? Was the exact time I jumped off the horse the last time I tried to lose that weight. On a selfish level, I need this – this might motivate me to push past that number I've never seen before on the scale."

Keeping true to his word since "WWE Unreal" was filmed, Jelly Roll has visibly transformed himself and claims he's up for one more match or even a six to nine month run as a full-time pro wrestler.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "WWE Unreal" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.