Setting the record straight. Bunnie Xo and rapper-turned-country star Jelly Roll have an impressive rags to riches story, which will come to life in Bunnie’s new book Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic, which is set for release tomorrow, February 17th.
Bunnie was working as a high-end escort in her hometown of Las Vegas when she met Jelly in 2015 while backstage at one of his concerts at the Las Vegas Country Saloon. They married in a spontaneous Las Vegas ceremony in 2016, and have been together ever since. Though they’ve both been honest about the highs and lows of their relationship, they’ve accomplished a lot, and have come from very humble beginnings to reach the top of the ladder in terms of fame and success.
Bunnie has been very open about her past, particularly on her very popular Dumb Blonde podcast, and while she’s never shied away from that part of her past, in an interview with Extra TV ahead of her book release, she explained that she never wants to “glamorize” that lifestyle, either.
She has said before that she made tens of thousands of dollars, and often more than that, being a high-end escort, but she says she isn’t trying to make young girls think it’s the kind of future they should pursue, but rather she wants to be transparent about the “survival mode” she was in for so many years while doing this kind of work:
“I don’t ever want anybody to think that I glamorize that lifestyle. It’s like, I never want to talk down about sex work, but at the same time, it was a means to an end, and I was in survival mode.
It’s not a lifestyle that everybody should be in, and it’s not something that I ever want to glamorize. I don’t ever want a little girl to read my book and think, ‘Oh, well Bunnie did it, so I should do it.’ No. Don’t do it.”
I applaud her for trying to discourage young women from doing that type of work as much as I do her honesty, because she clearly speaks from experience and knows better than anyone how dark that kind of lifestyle is. The way she has turned her life around is really admirable whether you’re huge fans of Bunnie and Jelly or not… they’ve come a very long way together, that’s for sure.
In the same interview, Bunnie was asked how it worked when she and Jelly first got together considering he was on tour and she was still working as a high-end escort, and she explained that she would “book dates” in the same cities he was playing in, adding that Jelly never judged her or tried to save her… he only loved her where she was and it evolved from there:
“My husband, a lot of people do not understand our relationship. And my husband saved me because he let me be myself. He never trued to save me, he never tried to come in and be like ‘You can’t do this. You need to change who you are.’
He always just loved me where I was at, and the way that he loved me made me want to change for him. It was wild in the beginning. He would be on tour and I would book dates while he was on the road, and he just always respected what I did as a hustler. And I always respected what he did, and we have never tried to change each other. So for that I’m thankful, but sometimes I look back on that and I’m like, nobody’s going to understand this.”
I’m sure this is just barely scratching the surface of everything in her book, and it will be out wherever you buy books tomorrow.
Here’s the interview:
@extra_tv @Bunnie Xo 🪄 ♬ original sound – ExtraTV
