The Reason Jelly Roll Was ‘Petrified’ to Try Ozempic for Weight Loss
Jelly Roll opened up about losing 140 pounds.
He said that he did it “naturally,” but doesn’t oppose weight loss injectables like Ozempic.
“I was just petrified of the side effects,” he said.
Over the last few years, singer and rapper Jelly Roll steadily lost weight after making the decision to change his relationship with food. He was a “550-pound zombie,” he recently said on his wife Bunnie XO’s podcast, Dumb Blonde. When she reiterated that he “put in the work” to lose 140 pounds naturally, he made it clear that he supports the use of weight loss injectables like Ozempic, but had his own reasons not to use them.
“We’re not against Ozempic or any of that stuff. Every doctor I’ve talked to is for it. They said it helps. I just was afraid of it,” the 40-year-old explained. His specific fear related to acid reflux, a common side effect within the medication class. “As a singer, few things scare me more than acid reflux. Like, you’ll watch me get up out of a bed, I’ll burp and wake up panicked and go take something for it. You know? Because that stuff will just rip the vocal cords,” he said.
A specific type of acid reflux called laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) is when stomach acids creep up past the esophagus (typical of gastroesophageal reflux) and into the throat and larynx or voice box. When that happens, research shows that LPR can damage the mucosal tissue causing chronic laryngitis, throat ulcers, or scarring, and coughing, a symptom of LPR, may cause additional vocal cord irritation.
“I just could not afford any acid reflux. So I want to be very clear that I’ve done it naturally, but it wasn’t out of stubbornness or trying to prove a point,” he said. “If it helps you, go get it. But for me, I was just petrified of the side effects of it.”
Other common side effects of Ozempic specifically include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, and stomach pain, Florence Comite, M.D., founder of the Comite Center for Precision Medicine & Health previously told Prevention. Some cases are more extreme than others. “About 20% of my patients will discontinue use as they have difficulty tolerating Ozempic due to these side effects,” she explained. However, the other 80% of experiences are mild, she added.
In December 2022, Jelly Roll announced the launch of his weight loss journey and got started by making healthier food choices and exercising more. Two years later, he has no plans to slow down. “I wanna have one of the biggest transformations,” he said on the Dumb Blonde podcast. “I did this publicly for a reason. I wanna be honest about my struggles with it with people. I wore it for so long. I think that people that become as big as I became, when they lose the weight, they’re kind of ashamed. They’re so ashamed that they go hide and lose the weight, and then they come back out and they don’t really know how to interact with the world looking different or feeling different.”
He said he hopes to lose another 100 pounds in 2025. “I wanted to lose it in front of everybody,” he said. “I wanna bring people along with me.”
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