WASHINGTON, DC (CelebrityAccess) – Country music star, rapper, singer, and songwriter Jelly Roll, born Jason Bradley DeFord, has been to jail—more than once. The two-time Grammy-nominated musician has served time behind bars several times for crimes, including dealing drugs.
The 39-year-old DeFord, accompanied by his wife, Alyssa DeFord – aka BunnieXO, visited Capitol Hill and testified before lawmakers on Thursday (January 11), giving an emotional and powerful testimony on the impact of fentanyl in our country. DeFord appeared at Capitol Hill after appearing alongside Fat Joe and Wyclef Jean for “Power to the Patients,” an event held Wednesday (January 10) at the Washington DC’s Hamilton Live venue.
DeFord’s visit also came less than 96 hours after he visited his former jail cell in Nashville to reflect on his troubled past in the facility he said sparked the inspiration for many of his songs.
The “Creature” singer was on the hill to urge the passing of the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which is a “sanctions and anti-money laundering bill to help combat the country’s fentanyl crisis by targeting opioid traffickers devastating America’s communities,” according to the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee’s website.
He sat in front of the Senate’s Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee’s Stopping the Flow of Fentanyl: Public Awareness and Legislative Solutions hearing and began by taking note that in the five-minute time slot that he was allotted, someone in the US will die from a drug overdose and that, according to studies, will have a 72% chance of being fentanyl-related.
“It is important to establish earlier that I am a musician and that I have no political alliance. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. In fact, because of my past, my right to vote has been restricted,” DeFord said. “Thus far, I have never paid attention to a political race in my life. Ironically, I think that makes me the perfect person to speak about this because fentanyl transcends partisanship and ideology.”
DeFord told those in the room that roughly 190 people die of an overdose every single day nationwide, approximately the equivalent of a 737 plane at total capacity. He went on to use that analogy by saying:
Could you imagine the national media attention it would get if they were reporting that a plane was crashing every single day and killing 190 people? But because it’s 190 drug addicts, we don’t feel that way because America has been known to bully and shame drug addicts instead of dealing and trying to understand what the actual root of the problem is.
The “She” singer has spoken very openly about his drug-dealing past and prior convictions, which has led to him now advocating for the victims of the opioid epidemic with a focus on heroin and fentanyl. During his testimony, he said, “I believed when I sold drugs, genuinely, that selling drugs was a victimless crime.”
Acknowledging the “paradox of my history as a drug dealer standing in front of this committee,” DeFord noted that he “was a part of the problem.”
“I brought my community down. I hurt people. I was the uneducated man in the kitchen playing chemist with drugs I knew absolutely nothing about, just like these drug dealers are doing right now when they’re mixing every drug on the market with fentanyl. And they’re killing the people we love,” he said.
CNN reported in October that new estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics project that more than 112,000 people died from a drug overdose in the 12 months ending in May 2023, an increase of more than 2,700 from the previous year.
“I’ve attended more funerals than I care to share with y’all, this committee,” DeFord stated. “I could sit here and cry for days about the caskets I’ve carried of people I love dearly, deeply, in my soul. It is time for us to be proactive and not reactive. I truly believe in my heart that this bill will stop the supply and can help stop the supply of fentanyl.”
