Jelly Roll Credits: I Prioritize My Family, And That’s What Anchors Me Down
Movieguide® Contributor
Country music star Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason DeFord, is sharing the secret to his happy marriage—“honest communication.”
“Honest communication—we talk about the uncomfortable stuff up front,” he said when asked what makes a happy marriage. “It’s a really important thing in our marriage. And also, we don’t take nothing too serious,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Have a short memory,” he continued. “Laugh as much as you can. Laughter is the best medicine.”
Jason tied the knot with TikTok influencer and podcaster, Bunnie Xo, whose real name is Alisa DeFord, since 2016.
Last year, he told PEOPLE Alisa is “the person you show up to when the chips are down.” He said they never go more than two weeks without seeing each other, even when Jason’s busy touring.
“I prioritize family and that’s what anchors me down. My world shrunk when I focused on one woman,” Jason said.
“Fourteen days has been our rule kind of from the beginning,” he said last year. “We actually just implemented that same rule with our 16-year-old [daughter Bailee]. Because we realized that we were going a month or two at a time without seeing her, and I was like, this just needs to be family.”
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The couple first got together in 2015. Jason recalled, “When I hugged her, I could just feel the genuineness of her. I could tell it wasn’t an act.”
“We stuck it out. We were like the story nobody thought of. She’s my best friend, man. She really is,” he said.
In 2017, Alisa helped Jason get custody of Bailee from her biological mom.
Jason said they have a “beautiful mother-daughter bond,” and “it takes a special kind of woman to raise a kid that isn’t her child and still treat the child as if she was.”
“You are the epitome of a good mom and deserve more credit than anyone because you didn’t have to step up to the plate the way you did,” the singer told his wife on social media. “You chose to step up and man you have knocked it out of the park. Thank you Mama Bear — we love you.”
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Jason and Alisa will celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary on Aug. 31 this year.
READ MORE: JELLY ROLL JOINS AMERICAN IDOL TO FILL THIS NEW POSITION
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