Watch The Rock Finally Hug Jelly Roll 8 Years After Singer's Music Helped Him Through a Dark Time
In a sweet video posted by the two stars late Monday (June 30) on Instagram, the movie star wraps the musician in a huge hug backstage on the set of American Idol, on which Jelly served as the show's first-ever artist in residence in the recently wrapped season 23. 'I've been waiting a decade for this hug, baby!' the singer says, emerging from his trailer.
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The two men then dive into an emotional conversation, with Johnson explaining how he struggled while living as a teenager in Nashville after his family was evicted from their home in Hawaii. Years later, the actor went through another difficult time in 2017, but was able to power through after discovering Jelly's music.
'I was struggling,' Johnson wrote in his caption. 'My mental wellness turned into my mental hellness … Then a song came on through my headphones one morning on a random shuffle playlist. 'Only' from Jelly Roll. The lyrics rocked me. Hard core.'
Johnson then reached out to Jelly, spawning a yearslong friendship based on messaging back and forth. As the musician says in the clip, the former pro wrestler beat Jelly's own mom to congratulating him after he won his first award.
Finally getting to meet in person, Johnson gifted Jelly with a special present: a postcard showing where the actor used to live in Nashville. If anyone understands what it's like to struggle while coming up in Music City, it's Jelly; the Tennessee-born artist has been open about spending time in and out of jail before starting his music career.
'This is crazy … this is real old-school Nashville history,' a shocked Jelly says at the end of the video, holding up the postcard to show what Johnson wrote: 'Keep doin' it brother. Proud of you!'
Johnson has previously shared how Jelly's music helped him through a dark period. On The Kelly Clarkson Show last November, the superstar said, 'That was one of my bouts with depression … I was trying to balance a lot, we were pregnant with our second baby … my older daughter, she was long distance, I was trying to film a movie. There was a lot going on.'
'We got in contact with each other and I told him what it meant to me,' Johnson continued at the time. 'We didn't know each other, but became really good friends. That's my boy, and I love that guy.'
The video comes as Jelly is currently on tour, balancing solo dates with joint stadium shows with Post Malone. Jelly's latest album, Beautifully Broken, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
And in addition to their shared Nashville history, Jelly and Johnson have something else in common. Both are Billboard chart-reaching artists, with The Rock landing on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016 with Moana's 'You're Welcome.'
Watch The Rock and Jelly Roll finally meet face to face below.
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How Lizzo Channeled Weezy, Missy Elliott & Her 14-Year-Old Self for Her Rap Mixtape: ‘I Was Calling Myself ‘Lizzo Wayne'
After years of winning America over with her dazzling pop sensibilities and musical flair, Grammy Award-winning artist Lizzo is switching lanes — at least for the summer. On Friday (June 27), Lizzo channels her 14-year-old self and returns to her first musical love: rap. Once a member of the Houston hip-hop group Cornrow Clique, Lizzo is back in rare form, delivering swaggering bars and vivacious energy that would've made her middle school classmates scream. 'I think what 14-year-old Lizzo would be most proud of is that I can say more cuss words,' she chuckles during a Zoom interview with Billboard ahead of her new mixtape My Face Still Hurts From Smiling. 'Back then, all I could say was n—a and hoe. I couldn't say b–ch, I couldn't say f–k, I couldn't say sh-t. It was so satisfying for me.' 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Below, Billboard speaks to Lizzo about how Lil Wayne and Missy Elliott served as inspirations for her new mixtape, if she would do an all-rap Tiny Desk, quieting the outside noise and her sisterhood with SZA. How you feeling about your new mixtape dropping? I feel really excited. I did it really quickly. This is different for me. I'm usually in the studio for like two years and my music is turned in months in advance. Then, I'm like doing a slow promo rollout. This time, I did everything in a week and I just approved the master like 20 mins ago. You're moving like Wayne. I was calling myself 'Lizzo Wayne.' [Laughs.] What many people may not know is that you first started out in a rap group, Cornrow Clique. What creative elements from that era still show up in your music today, especially from an MC standpoint? I think how fun and how off-the-cuff a lot of it was. I used to enjoy sitting and writing down my verse and everybody coming together like, 'Who got the craziest verse?' and feeding off of that energy. What I think is one of the most [exciting] elements is my best friend Lexo, who was in Cornrow Clique. Her voice is on this project. I flew her in from Houston like day three when I was working on everything. I already had like 11 songs. I flew her in and I was like, 'Ay. I need you to give me ad-libs. I need your voice on this track.' So you can hear her being like, 'We outside, ho! We outside.' So it's a full-circle moment. How is your creative process different when you're in rap mode versus your pop/R&B bag? Does it unlock a different side of your pen or persona? I think it does, but I also feel like it's the same me. For instance, 'About Damn Time' [starts rapping], that was like a freestyle that I did in the booth. And I think that's how I start with everything. It's like a freestyle and it's typically kind of rappity, and then I add melodies. Then, I go in and adjust the lyrics like, 'Can I say this? Can you say this in pop music?' With this project, I'm like, 'Man. The first thing that comes out my mouth, I'm gonna say it. I'm not gonna edit myself.' But with pop, there's a lot of editing. You've mentioned not being a hip-hop historian growing up, but clearly the culture still moved you. Was there anyone you studied or drew inspiration from while making this project? I remember I kept saying Lil Wayne was the person I wanna be [like]. I wanna be like Mixtape Wayne when I do this, but I always have a little bit of Missy Elliott in me — at all times. She's just a part of me. So I definitely tapped into Missy. I feel like you've had a little bit of Missy engrained in you, at least from a music video standpoint. Aw thank you. She's my GOAT. She's in my big three. 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I'm bigging all the women up because we're truly doing our big ones. It's incredible to me. When 'Yitty on Yo Tittys' freestyle came out, the internet people were like, 'Wait. I didn't know Lizzo can rap?' And it was like, 'Y'all didn't know Lizzo can rap?' It kind of pushed me back into those [rap] conversations [since] I have been in the pop conversation for a long time. So it feels good. It feels good to know that I can tap my toe in, say hello real quick and pop back out. What's your favorite verse on the mixtape and what headspace were you in when you wrote it? I got some many good verses, bro. I feel like my favorite that gets me every time is 'Gotcho Bitch.' — that's the song where I drop the names of all of the girls who are killing it. I know there's way more too. I don't want anyone to feel left out. I love all of us, but that was crazy to because I had these three beats. One was a Tay-Keith Beat and a Jasper Harris beat. I slid them altogether and I had three beat-switches. To be able to switch my flow up and go off on all of them was really, really fun to me. Oh my gosh. The other gag about this project is I wrote everything in four days. So like, my past albums, it takes weeks and sometimes months to finish the songs. So the lyrics are burned into my brain. This, the sh-t so was so off-the-cuff. Now, I'm like, 'F–k. How do I perform these songs?' [Laughs.] I gotta remember everything, but I made a little mini-documentary of how it was all made too. I can't wait to share all that. I think it's crazy you knocked out a doc and mixtape in less than a week. I set the cameras up. I record everything. I have Love in Real Life recorded, too. When I'm in the studio, I have the cameras going 24/7. I'm curious. How do you plan to pivot back into album-mode for coming out of this rap-centric / mixtape era? I think what I learned from this mixtape I'm going to put into Love in Real Life. Really, what I learned from this is trust your vision, trust your instinct. 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