Jelly Roll‘s Beautifully Broken Tour was one of the hottest and most expansive country music tours in 2024, and it delivered a lot of highlights, from surprise guests to emotional artist-fans moments.

But as it turns out, Jelly wasn’t feeling so hot for a lot of it.

“I was on antibiotics for 70 of the 90 days of that tour,” the singer reveals in a new episode of his wife Bunnie Xo‘s Dumb Blonde podcast.

Bunnie interjects to say that he did much of the tour under “extreme duress,” starting at the very beginning: Before the very first show on the Beautifully Broken Tour, which was in Utah, she says Jelly was in the hospital after he started having extreme stomach pain that pointed to appendicitis or a gallbladder issue.

“I hadn’t ate for a week. Just could not. It was horrible,” Jelly remembers of that time. “… I thought we were gonna have to cancel the first five shows because I thought I had to get a gallbladder removed.”

Jelly doesn’t mention what those tests revealed, but it seems that surgery wasn’t necessary: He made those five shows, and continued to deliver a powerhouse tour over the course of the next months.

But his health issues weren’t over: He also had to get a root canal in the middle of tour, as well as, “an infection going on in your jaw,” Bunnie says.

“My husband literally went to the dentist, to the oral surgeon, had surgery on his mouth, pulled up, walked in and walked on that stage,” she recounts.

“My mouth was still numb,” Jelly agrees. “I did the first three songs feeling like I had slobber coming off my face.

“It’s still there. I still gotta go get the cyst removed this month. I still gotta get a dime sized cyst removed from the middle of my teeth,” he continues.

That’s not to say that the Beautifully Broken Tour wasn’t a success.

On the contrary, in many respects, it was the singer’s most successful tour to date, and he spent much of it playing bigger, better sets and connecting more to fans than he ever has before. It also marked the continuation of his weight loss journey, which has now resulted in Jelly dropping 140 pounds — and counting.

“It’s weird. Spiritually, it was the best tour of my life. Performance-wise, it was the best tour of my life,” he relates. “The 90 minutes we were onstage, I think we connected the way we’ve never connected from the stage, overall.”

“Physically, even though I lost 100 pounds, worst tour of my career,” the singer adds.

But all those health setbacks were continuing reminders to prioritize his health.

“The good news was, all that kind of pushed me further into the health journey. These were all little guides,” he explains.

Jelly’s Beautifully Broken era isn’t quite over yet. Early next year, he’s planning to take his show up to Canada for the tour’s first international dates.