After nearly a decade of friendship built on the power of music, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jelly Roll finally got to meet in person.
In a sweet video posted by the two stars late Monday (June 30) on Instagram, the movie star wraps the musician in a huge hug backstage on the set of American Idol, on which Jelly served as the show’s first-ever artist in residence in the recently wrapped season 23. “I’ve been waiting a decade for this hug, baby!” the singer says, emerging from his trailer.
The two men then dive into an emotional conversation, with Johnson explaining how he struggled while living as a teenager in Nashville after his family was evicted from their home in Hawaii. Years later, the actor went through another difficult time in 2017, but was able to power through after discovering Jelly’s music.
“I was struggling,” Johnson wrote in his caption. “My mental wellness turned into my mental hellness … 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.”
Johnson then reached out to Jelly, spawning a yearslong friendship based on messaging back and forth. As the musician says in the clip, the former pro wrestler beat Jelly’s own mom to congratulating him after he won his first award.
Finally getting to meet in person, Johnson gifted Jelly with a special present: a postcard showing where the actor used to live in Nashville. If anyone understands what it’s like to struggle while coming up in Music City, it’s Jelly; the Tennessee-born artist has been open about spending time in and out of jail before starting his music career.
“This is crazy … this is real old-school Nashville history,” a shocked Jelly says at the end of the video, holding up the postcard to show what Johnson wrote: “Keep doin’ it brother. Proud of you!”
Johnson has previously shared how Jelly’s music helped him through a dark period. On The Kelly Clarkson Show last November, the superstar said, “That was one of my bouts with depression … I was trying to balance a lot, we were pregnant with our second baby … my older daughter, she was long distance, I was trying to film a movie. There was a lot going on.”
“We got in contact with each other and I told him what it meant to me,” Johnson continued at the time. “We didn’t know each other, but became really good friends. That’s my boy, and I love that guy.”
The video comes as Jelly is currently on tour, balancing solo dates with joint stadium shows with Post Malone. Jelly’s latest album, Beautifully Broken, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
And in addition to their shared Nashville history, Jelly and Johnson have something else in common. Both are Billboard chart-reaching artists, with The Rock landing on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016 with Moana‘s “You’re Welcome.”
Watch The Rock and Jelly Roll finally meet face to face below.
