02/09/2026
Jelly Roll closed his final monologue guest-hosting for Jimmy Kimmel by sharing an anecdote from his late father that still resonates with him today:
"My father, Buddy DeFord, God rest his soul, was a blue-collar Democrat, and his brother was a red-hat Republican. And this might be hard for people out there to understand, but they were absolutely best friends. And when my father was in hospice on his deathbed and I had the opportunity to ask him everything I wanted to know, I said, 'Dad, how are you and your brother so tight when y'all didn't agree about anything?'
"And he looked at me and said, 'Son, we agreed about hundreds of things. We only didn't agree about a few things, and we were not going to let the few things we didn't agree about define our entire relationship.'
"I've been thinking about that a lot. Because here's the truth and the fact of the matter: politicians and algorithms make an absolute fortune convincing us that the person across the street from us is the reason our life is hard.
"And transparently, I don't know how qualified I am to be standing up here talking about this. I don't have any qualifications at all. But something I've learned about God over the years is He doesn't have much of a history of waiting around for perfect people. So if being imperfect is the only qualification I need—hell, I might be the best candidate!
"And I just want us to remember that the person across the street from us is a human being before they're a voter. And what I want to ask of myself is to defend human dignity even when it could cost me something. It hasn't been easy being on this show this week. I knew what kind of a storm I was going to cause, and I was okay with that because I told myself I would never be so afraid of being called 'political' again that I didn't say what I know is right.
"And while everything else I've said this week has been a complete joke, this is not. Our leaders on both sides of the aisle are doing an absolute terrible job of trying to bring us together, y'all. And this is what we need to remember: that doesn't mean that responsibility disappears. That means that responsibility then falls on us—and when I say us, I mean the old-school 'We the People.'
"There's a famous quote that I think about all the time that says: 'While we are fighting monsters, we must be careful not to become a monster ourselves.' We may disagree. We may argue. We may vote completely differently. But let's try not to let the couple of things we disagree about make us forget the hundreds and hundreds of things we have in common. My daddy was right about that. And he was right about something else: it is never too late to do the right thing.
"And I hope that tonight, while he's looking down from heaven, I made him proud.
"And tomorrow, I'm going to try a little harder than I did today to love my neighbor—'cause sometimes they're not all the way lovable! And I hope y'all will do the same thing."