Jelly Roll has never shied away from the fact that he used to be a drug dealer. Nor has he been hesitant to speak on his previous battles with substance abuse and addiction. However, those issues spread throughout his family. When he went to Capitol Hill to talk about the current opioid epidemic, he discussed the fact that his daughter Bailee’s mom is an addict. He worries daily that she’ll become a casualty of the epidemic and he’ll have to break the news to his daughter. Recently, the 15-year-old revealed that her mother tried to pull her into that world at an incredibly young age.
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Bailee appeared on the latest episode of Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast. During the conversation, she revealed the truth of the drug-filled summer she spent with her mother.
Jelly Roll’s Daughter Bailee Shares Her Story
It all started in 2020. Bailee’s biological mother, Felicia Beckwith had just gotten out of jail and seemed to be in recovery. “She popped up two days before my 12th birthday,” the teenager recalled. “I guess we just kinda started building a relationship from there,” she added.
Bunnie said that she and Jelly Roll weren’t sure about things. However, they both know that people can get clean and change. So, they gave her the benefit of the doubt. They even went so far as to help her get a house because they thought she was sober and wanted to be in Bailee’s life. They wanted to do all they could to help facilitate their rekindled relationship.
Months later, they made the group decision to let Bailee spend the summer with her mom. It didn’t take long for things to go downhill. Before long, Beckwith was drinking and smoking pot with her young daughter. At the time, Bailee thought, “OK, this is whatever, you’re just a cool mom, you’re letting me drink, you’re letting me smoke weed. This is cool.” Unfortunately, things escalated from there.
“it was the Fourth of July. We had left my Mimi’s for her big Fourth of July that she does every year,” Bailee recalled. That’s when her mother told her they needed to make a stop. She wanted to stop at her dealer’s house. The teenager said, “I was so drunk. The kind of drunk where I can’t even feel what’s around me.” However, she was sober enough to be angry with her mother.
Things Got Worse Before They Got Better
Bailee fought with Beckwith after finding out she was using hard drugs again. However, after some discussion, they were able to smooth things over. That’s when Beckwith introduced her young daughter to hard drugs. “We’re in the Dollar General and she looks at me and she’s like ‘Will you try it?’ And I’m like, ‘No. What the f— do you mean will I try it,” Bailee revealed.
“I ended up trying it because she’s, like I said, manipulative, and she did the mom thing,” she continued. “It’s weird to say ‘Did the mom thing’ but that’s the best way I can put it in terms of how persuasive she was, how convincing it was. It’s not a mom thing, but it’s a my mom thing. She did the Felicia thing and it worked,” She added.
After that, Bailee admits that she doesn’t remember much of her summer. She was smoking pot, drinking, and abusing prescription drugs. “I was never sober for a good 8-month period,” she revealed.
During her freshman year of high school, Bailee made the decision to get sober. Her mother was upset about this. However, that didn’t stop her from making the right decision. At the same time, Jelly Roll and Bunnie had noticed a change in her demeanor. As a result, they put her in therapy to work through whatever was bothering her. At the time, they had no idea she was using drugs. So, at the very least, the harrowing story has a happy ending.
Featured Image by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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