Comedian Rosie O’Donnell publicly thanked country singer Jelly Roll this week after he used his guest-hosting stint on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to mock President Trump’s weight and appearance.
“I love this Jelly Roll guy,” she said. “Shoutout to you. Back at you. you are killing this mister…I’m going to go have a jelly donut in your honor.”
Jelly Roll, the three-time Grammy-winning singer known for hits including “Save Me” and “Son of a Sinner,” filled in for Jimmy Kimmel on Monday for the second year in a row. During his opening monologue, he devoted several minutes to jabbing at the president over his appearance at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix IndyCar race in Washington. Mocking video of Mr. Trump waving the green flag to start the race, the singer joked, “What a s—- job! How do you f—- up waving a flag?”
He went on to needle the president’s motorcade lap around the track, calling it “the lap of honor, which sounds like a loyalty program at a strip club,” and pivoted to a lengthy riff on Mr. Trump’s weight, telling the crowd, “In the last few years, I’ve lost 300 lb. That means I’ve lost an entire Donald Trump.”
The monologue caught some of the singer’s fans off guard, given his history of steering clear of party politics. In 2024 testimony to Congress on the fentanyl crisis, Jelly Roll said, “I am neither Democrat nor Republican,” noting that his felony record had at the time restricted his right to vote.
The monologue drew swift backlash from some conservative fans who called the material vulgar and warned that Jelly Roll risked alienating listeners who supported the president. The singer did not walk it back. Addressing critics the next night, he said he was cracking jokes because it was, in his words, “a damn late-night show,” and told fans threatening a boycott to go right ahead.
It was in that same wave of reaction that Ms. O’Donnell — the comedian and former “The View” co-host who relocated to Ireland and has feuded publicly with Mr. Trump for years — weighed in, praising the singer and telling him her door was open.
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