Jelly Roll Says His Face Tattoos Once Kept His Daughter’s Friends Away

Jelly Roll’s face tattoos are part of his identity now, symbols of survival, but when his daughter Bailee Ann was growing up, that ink came with consequences that had nothing to do with music and everything to do with perception.

Speaking recently on Taste of Country Nights, Jelly Roll reflected on the awkward and sometimes painful reality of being a heavily tattooed parent in suburban America, when Bailee was in kindergarten, her friends were curious and blunt in the way only kids can be.

“It was so funny, because all of her little friends would go, ‘What is all that stuff on your face?’” he recalled, at first Jelly tried to soften it with humour, spinning a harmless lie to keep things light.

“I would go, ‘You won’t believe this, I only draw this on when I come see y’all so y’all are excited about it,’” he said. “Finally, they were like, ‘How do you draw it on the same way every time?’ I said, ‘I got the little sticker things now because I been coming so much.’”

Eventually the joke stopped working, as the kids got older, the judgement shifted from playground curiosity to parental suspicion, according to Taste of Country, some parents began refusing to let their children visit Jelly Roll’s home “due to the face tattoos and the lifestyle that they assumed it brought.”

It’s a familiar story for anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into respectable boxes, appearance standing in for character, ink standing in for intent.

Despite those hurdles, Jelly Roll has been open about fighting to rebuild his relationship with Bailee after spending time in jail earlier in his life and having to prove his capability as a father in court, now he shares joint custody with his wife Bunnie Xo, and their bond is strong.

Bailee (now 17) recently hosted a prom for Jelly and Bunnie, a full circle moment neither of them got to experience growing up.

Jelly has never pretended his tattoos are something he’d repeat:

“I regret 98 percent of these tattoos, 97 percent. Almost all of them,” he told GQ in 2024.

“Now that I’m 40, I’m like, ‘What the f–k was I thinking?’”