Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jelly Roll recently shared a “brotherly hug almost 10 years in the making,” marking a mutually inspirational moment first set in motion by the 2017 song “Only.”
As seen in footage of the meeting, Jelly first greeted Johnson by telling him he’d been “waiting a decade for this hug.” Per the star of the upcoming The Smashing Machine, while he and Jelly have been “buddies” for years, this marked their first proper in-person encounter.
“Several years ago (roughly 2017) I was going through a very hard thing at the time, I was struggling,” Johnson said when detailing the personal importance of the Jelly link-up in a note to fans on Monday night. “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.”
At some point during this difficult period in Johnson’s life, a playlist he had on shuffle introduced him to “Only,” a song off Jelly’s 2017 album Addiction Kills.
“The words moved me so much that I reached out to Jelly,” Johnson told fans on Instagram. “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.’ Our bond was born.”
As seen in the video above, Johnson didn’t show up to the meeting empty-handed. Instead, he brought with him a uniquely personal gift stemming from Johnson’s own fateful intersection with Nashville.
Next for Johnson is a much-anticipated turn as Mark Kerr in an A24-backed drama set for an Oct. 3 theatrical release. Just this month, Johnson was on hand to help honor Kerr as part of the 2025 UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Las Vegas. Johnson’s The Smashing Machine co-star, Emily Blunt, was also in attendance.
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