Jelly Roll Moves Viewers to Tears With Inspiring Acceptance Speech
Jelly Roll
Jelly Roll's CMA Awards acceptance speech deserves its own award.
The breakout country star was honored with the award for New Artist of the Year at the 57th Annual CMA Awards on Wednesday, Nov. 8, and as he stepped on stage to accept the honor, he reminded the audience just how inspiring he can be.
After giving some credit to his record label and all of those who helped him achieve this accomplishment, Jelly Roll, 38 made a point to shout out his wife, Bunnie DeFord, sweetly telling her, "I love you so much. You changed my life, baby."
He then went on to give props to his fellow nominees, Parker McCollum, Megan Moroney and Hailey Whitters, as well as Zach Bryan, who he called "one of the hottest things on Earth."
"But most importantly," the singer continued, "There's something poetic about a 39-year-old man winning New Artist of the Year."
That's when the speech started to get really emotional, as Jelly Roll told the crowd and the viewers at home, "I don't know where you're at in your life or what you're going through, but I want to tell you to keep going, baby!"
"I want to tell you success is on the other side of it," he continued. "I want to tell you it's gonna be okay. I wanna tell you that the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason because what's in front of you is so much more important than what's behind you."
As the audience roared with applause, Jelly Roll finished off the speech by shouting, "Let's party, Nashville!"
Fans were immediately taken by the moving speech, with many taking to X (formerly Twitter) to express their emotions after hearing Jelly Roll speak.
Omg Jelly Roll just gave me chills ?????????????????????????????????????????? his speech on the CMA’s was so amazing ??
— Bay (@xoxobay_22) November 9, 2023
"JELLY ROLL IS A LEGEND," one user wrote. "Winning CMA New Artist of the Year then follows it up with the hypest 30-second speech of all time."
"I would literally run through a brick wall for Jelly Roll," another fan quipped.
I'm not a huge CMA fan, but Jelly Roll just gave a rousing speech about getting a Best New Artist Award at 39 and how it is never too late to [do the thing], and dang if I didn't need to hear that.
Some of us are late bloomers, and that's okay.#CMAawards— Topher's Tomfoolish Tweetery (@GravesTopher) November 9, 2023
"Good LAWD Jelly Roll I felt something watching this. Maybe the best acceptance speech ever," one X user added, while someone else exclaimed, "JELLY ROLL FOR PRESIDENT!!!!"
Check out the rest of the evening's winners here.
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