Jelly Roll Gets Emotional Bringing Children From Ruby Major Elementary School To Opry Stage: “I’m Gonna Cry”

If there is one artist who constantly goes out of their way to uplift the community, it’s Jelly Roll.

Whether he and his wife, Bunnie Xo, are helping young kids express themselves through music or the “Save Me” singer is visiting prisons, sharing his story of how he turned his life around, this couple goes out of their way to spread joy and uplift the greater Nashville area. Even Bunnie Xo has been extremely open and vulnerable about her IVF process, showing women all over that they’re not alone on the journey.

Most recently, Jelly Roll brought smiles to the faces of young children who were there to help their community in need.

“In Nashville, they just went through a horrible tragedy… they told me not to talk about this on stage, but I don’t care. I’m too honest not to be honest, right? My old high school had a tragedy earlier this year, Antioch High School. Because of the children in the room, I don’t even want to instill that fear, but y’all know what happened. If you know, you know, and it was really sad. That was my old school.”

The tragedy Jelly is referring to is the shooting that happened at Antioch High School on January 25, 2025. At the start of the year,  17-year-old student Solomon Henderson opened fire inside the school’s cafeteria, killing one student and injuring another before he took his own life. The incident happened minutes after 11 am when Solomon confronted 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante with a handgun that was believed to be hidden in the restroom of the school. The gunman took Escalante’s life, and bullets grazed another student, and a third student was injured by falling while trying to protect himself.

The gunman fired ten shots in seventeen seconds, and in those seventeen seconds, every high schooler’s life changed at Antioch High School.

As Jelly Roll said, he would spare the details of the horrific event because young ears were in the room. He continues his story, sharing with the crowd how another Nashville school uplifted these students during the tragic time.

“And of course, I went back as soon as I could to help. But before I could make it, some children at Ruby Elementary School, right here in Nashville, in Hermitage, Tennessee, about sixteen minutes down the street, had a genius music teacher named Mr. K, who has been teaching these beautiful souls that music is powerful. And that music can help people in really dark moments of their lives.

These kids, all on their own.. I’m gonna cry… Somebody say something funny, please.

But these kids, they sung a song of mine called ‘I’m Not Okay,’ and they sent it to the high schoolers ’cause they said, ‘Maybe the big kids need the little kids to inspire them right now.'”

Jelly Roll takes a second to compose himself and to keep himself from crying on stage. After a brief pause, Jelly Roll shares that he invited these students and their music teacher to the stage at the Grand Ole Opry to sing their version of “I’m Not Okay” to the audience.

“Well, they sent it to me, and I have been looking for a reason to bring these talented kids on the stage to sing this song. And I think this is as close to God’s house as we could do it right here at the Grand Ole Opry during CMA Fest. If it’s okay, I’d like to bring Mr. K, who I think is a great, incredible, forward-thinking human, and I would like to bring the kids of Ruby Major Elementary School from Hermitage, Tennessee, to the stage.”

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