After 10 year friendship, how The Rock and Jelly Roll finally met, shared hug
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jelly Roll shared a “brotherly hug almost 10 years in the making” making their friendship official.
In an Instagram post the duo collaborated on, Johnson explained that he initially connected with the singer after hearing his song “Only” almost a decade ago.
“Several years ago (roughly 2017) I was going through a very hard thing at the time, I was struggling. My mental wellness turned into my mental hellness. Many of you know the drill, you put on 'the face,' show up to work, smile and get through it. Perhaps not the healthiest thing to do, but it’s what I was used to doing at the time,” Johnson wrote.
He continued, “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.”
The “Jumanji” star said the words of the song “moved me so much that I reached out to Jelly.”
“I said you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but this song of yours is helping me through some stuff I’m dealing with. I just called to say thank you brother.”
He added, “Our bond was born.”
Even with Johnson reaching out and texting back and forth the whole time, it still took almost 10 years for the stars to finally meet in person, and when they did, they shared a big hug.
Johnson even had a gift for Jelly Roll, an old Postcard from the Alamo Plaza motel in South Nashville, where the wrestler stayed after his family had to leave Hawaii and he went to live with his dad. He ended up at the motel after it didn’t work out with his dad and he wound up living with a man named Downtown Bruno, who is “one of my best and most special friends.”
Jelly Roll was touched by the gift, saying in the video, "This is real old-school Nashville history.”
“Every once in a while we all get sliced up by life, but it’s amazing to see what kind of blessings and people that God and the universe will put in our lives to help us heal through our pain,” Johnson wrote in the caption.
