Bunnie XO has no time for anyone questioning her husband Jelly Roll‘s Christian faith, recently using an episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast to discuss the online backlash to Jelly Roll’s recent Grammys speech and people calling him a “performative Christian.”
“It has been crazy,” she said of the internet response. “Who would have thought that my husband’s speech would set the internet on fire?” In his speech, which he gave while accepting the Grammy for Best Contemporary Country Album for Beautifully Broken, Jelly Roll passionately shared his own faith journey and encouraged others to seek out Jesus.
“I want to tell y’all right now, Jesus is for everybody,” he said. “Jesus is not owned by one political party, Jesus is not owned by no music label. Jesus is Jesus, and anybody can have a relationship with him. I love you, Lord.”
Bunnie XO pointed out that critics of the speech are “just proving why people do not want to be a Christian.”
“Seeing all of these people online just tearing apart my husband’s walk of faith makes me not want to associate with that type of Christianity,” she said. “It’s so horrific and it is so sad. And it’s borderline demonic.”
She pointed to one specific video she had seen online in which a woman called Jelly Roll a “performative Christian,” which Bunnie did not take lightly. “I’ve been seeing videos where people are, one, saying that my husband, he’s a performative Christian. Some f—ing c— bag, I forget who she was, made a video and she’s like, ‘Do you guys want to know what kind of Christian Jelly Roll is? For those of you who don’t know, it’s a performative Christian,”” she said, adding that if she wasn’t on her own “walk with God,” she would “find you and slap the s— of you lady because your voice, the pitch was just so much. It was like nails on a chalkboard, but I’m trying to turn the other cheek and be better. To me, in what world is it okay to ever question somebody’s walk with God?”
The 46-year-old added that her husband is not “sitting there saying, ‘You need to go to church. You need to donate to this fricking congregation. You need to donate to this church.’ He’s not saying that.” While she “could understand” the backlash if he was, Bunnie explained, “All he’s saying is, ‘Hey, Jesus is for everybody. Jesus does not belong to one political party. Jesus loves you.’ And the internet lost their minds.”
The podcast host noted that “The fact that I even have to defend my husband, because I’m always going to defend my husband, people are like, ‘You don’t have to defend him.’ Yes, I do. When there’s millions of people trying to say that my husband is a performative Christian, I definitely have to stand up for him because I know the truth.”
Discussing some of the music Jelly Roll has released throughout his career, Bunnie pointed out that Christian themes in Jelly Roll’s music go back years. “It’s not like he just woke up one day and was like, ‘I’m going to use Christianity to … ‘ Are you kidding me? They’re the hardest crowd to please. Obviously. Look what’s happening. At least when we were living in the secular world, nobody cared what we did. I feel like we’re being judged more by Christians than anything.”
