Eric Benét Calls Out Jelly Roll's Grammy Silence on Political Issues

					<span>Jelly Roll at the 68th GRAMMY Awards held at the Crypto.com Arena on Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles.</span>
								Christopher Polk/Billboard
								
					
				
		

Eric Benét didn't mince words in a recent Instagram video, taking Jelly Roll to task for his silence on political matters backstage at the 2026 Grammys. The R&B singer/songwriter voiced his concerns directly.

In a clip posted on Sunday, Benét, speaking directly to the camera, referenced the country star’s religiously charged acceptance speech after winning best contemporary country album for Beautifully Broken on Feb. 1. “Powerful speech, right? Holding the bible up in his hand, talking about what the Lord has done for him.”

Benét contrasted Jelly Roll’s onstage persona with a viral backstage moment. "When he was asked, ‘What about the atrocities in the world?’ All of a sudden he was, ‘I’m just a dumb ol’ redneck, I keep my political views to myself,'" Benét stated in his video.

“That n—a full of sh–,” the crooner added pointedly. “Never trust a person who will speak passionately and in great detail about love, but when it's time to speak against hate, they ain't got sh-- to say.”

Billboard has reached out to Jelly Roll’s representatives for comment.

The moment Benét referenced occurred shortly after Jelly Roll’s Grammy wins. Asked about commenting on current events, specifically the ICE shootings of Minnesotans Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Jelly Roll stated that “people shouldn’t care” about his opinion.

“I’m a dumb redneck,” he added. “I hate to be an artist who’s that aloof, but I’m so disconnected from what’s happening. … I didn’t even know politics were f—ing real until I was in my mid-20s in jail. When you grow up in a drug addict household, you think we have common calls about what’s happening in world politics?”

However, Jelly Roll also claimed he had “a lot to say” about political issues, promising to share his views with fans soon. Three weeks have passed without further comment.

On Monday (Feb. 23), Benét posted a follow-up video addressing feedback on his initial Jelly Roll critique.

“Some of the comments were like, ‘Yo, Eric, why everyone gotta be f—ing political? He said he was gonna do some research and get back on the topics he didn’t know about,’” Benét began in the new clip. “If you claim to be a follower of Christ, how much research do you have to do to publicly say that raping, torturing and killing children is bad? How much research you gotta do to say genocide is bad? How much research you gotta do to say that if the government is trying to take away our First Amendment right of free speech on this platform or any other or being able to protest in the street, or being able to safely protest in a street without having to be worried about being murdered, then that’s bad? I think one of the reasons we are in such a jam in this country and in the world right now is because too many people are too easily manipulated by a select few who claim to be godly but are funded by the Satanic.

“Jesus gave you an open-book test on what it means to follow him: Shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, and love thy neighbor,” he concluded. “All that other sh–, does that align with those teachings? Then it’s not political. It’s you being a good Christian to speak out against that sh–.”