Jelly Roll shares that he and Taylor Swift might be connected in a sweet way. The rapper-turned-singer revealed that the playground in which he would bring his daughter to was funded by no other than Swift herself.
“I take a ridiculous, probably abnormal, amount of pride in being from Nashville, so anytime I can link a Tennessee connect, it tickles me,” Jelly Roll told PEOPLE of the Nashville playground. “Taylor lived in Hendersonville for a while, and she had bought a playground. I used to push Bailee on that swingset that Taylor donated to Hendersonville. I wanted to tell her that when I met her, but I was so nervous I couldn’t even remember what swingset it was.”
In 2010, the playground suffered extreme water damage due and was rebuilt shortly after with a $100,000 donation from Swift.
It’s not random that the “Lover” singer donated to the Nashville playground as she attended high school in the area.
Jelly Roll meant to bring up the playground when he met her at the Grammys earlier this year but stated that he was “so nervous I couldn’t even remember what swing set it was.”
“My wife [Bunnie Xo] said, ‘I think Taylor’s coming over to holler at you.’ It was like the Red Sea parted for her,” he recalls. “I’m looking at Taylor Swift and I have a reason to explain to her why I like her so much, and I’m going, ‘You built the swingset somewhere, my daughter, I pushed her on it.’ I did so bad! Definitely was at a loss for words in that moment.”
The “Wild Ones” singer has always spoken highly of Swift who was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Nashville in her teen years.
“I’m a fly on a bull’s butt compared to Taylor Swift,” Jelly Roll said in a TikTok video in conversation with CMT back in July “But for her to come over and just say ‘Hi’… you know, she’s proudly from Nashville, and I love her philanthropic efforts in Nashville.”
Jelly Roll might not have gotten to share with Swift their connection but his wife, Bunnie Xo, captured the sweet moment of them meeting at the awards show on TikTok.
Jelly Roll and Taylor Swift At The Grammys
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At the 2024 Grammys, Jelly Roll was nominated for two awards: Best New Artist and Best Country Duo/Group Performance for his song “Save Me.” Next year, he has racked up two more nominations for Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song for “I Am Not Okay.”
Swift on the other hand, was nominated for six Grammys: Record of the Year (“Anti-Hero”), Best Solo Pop Performance (“Anti-Hero”), Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (“Karma”), Song of the Year (“Anti-Hero”), Album of the Year (Midnights) and Best Pop Vocal Album (Midnights). The singer walked away winning Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album putting her Grammy total at 14 awards.
Next year, Swift is nominated for six awards again with The Tortured Poets Department earning two for Best Solo Pop Album and Album of the Year. The lead single to TTPD, “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, earned nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Music Video. Her sixth nomination comes from a feature she did with Gracie Abrams called “us” which is found on her album The Secret of Us.
The 2025 Grammys will be held at Crypto.com Arena on Feb. 2.