Jelly Roll was "saved" by 'Save Me'.
The 37-year-old singer was emotional when he accepted the Best Music Event award with Lainey Wilson for their duet at the ACM Awards in Texas on Thursday (16.05.24) night and he was almost reduced to tears by the victory because the track meant so much to him during a "dark time" in his life.
He told 'Entertainment Tonight' backstage at the ceremony: "I was so emotional because it saved me. 'Save Me' was really the beginning of me finding my real voice and it was kind of me stepping out of my shell and being comfortable and just being open and vulnerable.
"I always wrote vulnerable music but never to that degree and it just changed my whole life. You've got to remember, I dropped 'Save Me' in the middle of 2020, it was a really dark time, and people connected with it and I get thousands of messages about how much that song has helped people.
"This song meant so much to me and I was so emotional because I think tonight was the last night it qualified for any cycle. So if I didn't win tonight, it never got what I thought it deserved."
During his acceptance speech, Jelly admitted he had reached a point where he thought he would "die or go to jail" at a young age so was overwhelmed by his win.
He said: "I'm going to try not to get emotional but no pun intended, but seriously, this song saved me.
"I was in a dark place, I wrote it from my soul - I knew people would connect with it.
"One year ago today Lainey and I stood on this stage and debuted it. This song is a triple platinum record, I wrote it with a high school friend, we never thought we'd be songwriters, I never thought I'd be standing here.
"I thought I would die or go to jail and I'm standing here as an ACM Award winner."
