Opening up on her bombshell divorce.
Back in June, Jelly Roll filed for divorce from his wife Bunnie Xo after a decade of marriage. The petition for divorce was filed by the rapper-turned-country-artist, whose real name is Jason DeFord, against his wife, whose real name is Alisa DeFord, back on May 18. It was reportedly a “mutual decision” and described as a “private family matter.”
Whiskey Riff obtained a copy of the divorce complaint that was filed by the “Save Me” singer, which revealed that the couple separated on May 9, a week and a half before the request for a divorce was filed. Jelly Roll cited “irreconcilable differences” as the grounds for the divorce, which in Tennessee is a no-fault grounds for divorce that means that the parties agree on the terms of the separation.
The couple were married back in 2016 before renewing their vows in 2023, and have been incredibly transparent about their relationship, including their struggles along the way. They were in the middle of trying to have a baby together through IVF, and in the interview below, she somewhat dodged a question about whether or not her and Jelly Roll are still working on that together (while also confirming she still wants to have a baby).
She has spoken at-length about what happened between them since, and especially in a since-deleted episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast, where Bunnie revealed a lot of details in terms of what went down between them and their reasons for splitting up. The breakup was prompted by a fight they two of them had on Mother’s Day of this year, and the divorce was made official not long after Jelly Roll filed.
The podcast was up for a little while, of course much of the news from it made tons of headlines, and during an in-depth interview on Jenna Bush Hager’s Open Book podcast, Bunnie opened up more about what’s been going on in her life post-divorce. She’s been spotted with Netflix personality Dylan Wolfe, and has openly talked about dating, but Bunnie says it’s not all been sunshine and rainbows, so to speak.
She told Jenna that there was a long period of time where she “wasn’t eating,” and her team had to get her IVs and feed her baby food to keep her going:
“There was moments when my team had to pick me up off the floor and give me IVs. I was eating baby food to get by. I lost 20 pounds. Heartbreak, man, it’s the best freaking diet.”
But some time has passed since then, and Bunnie says, even though it looks like she’s been having fun and living her best life post-divorce, she doesn’t want people to think she’s “out here acting like nothing doesn’t hurt.”
She explained she’s just trying to make lemons out of lemonade, so to speak, and she hopes her viewers have understood from her just how badly she was hurting because of all of this:
“That’s all you can do. When life hands you lemons, make freaking lemonade. Yeah, it hurt. And I talked about it and I let viewers in and I let them know on my podcast.”
In terms of the deleted podcast, Bunnie has said before she didn’t want her pain to live on the internet forever, which she reiterated wish Bush, saying she “didn’t want to live in it,” and she didn’t share it for money, though she admits she “made a s***load” off of it, and could’ve made a lot more if she left it up.
Ultimately, she just didn’t want to be the “poster child” for divorce, calling it a “devastating situation” she just wanted to move on from:
“I said what I needed to say. I made a s***load off of it. If I was gonna do it for money, I would’ve left it up. Every time I went to my YouTube, I didn’t want to see that. And I also don’t want to be the freaking poster child for divorce.
There’s nothing hot about that. It’s a very devastating situation that anybody ever has to go through. Families get broken up. Hearts get broken. So it’s time to move on.”
Bunnie talked about how she’s always been very independent, and her hopes for the future is that she can continue to stand on her own two feet as she continues to navigate this new chapter:
“So I don’t see why I couldn’t continue to stand on my own two feet and not have to dwell in that space of emotion.”
Bunnie has since revealed that she purchased a new home in California, and also made quite a fancy car purchase with a new Rolls Royce, so it sounds like she’s learning to navigate her new life and making some exciting purchases in the process.
