Brianna Chickenfry weighs in.
Although you’d never know it based on how much she still talks about it, it’s been nearly two years since the dramatic breakup between country star Zach Bryan and influencer Brianna Chickenfry. Zach has since gotten married and seemingly moved on with his life, though his wife Samantha does bear a striking resemblance to Brianna. I digress…
She still does her Plan Bri podcast solo, and this week, she discussed the divorce of Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo, whose real names are Jason and Alisa DeFord. He filed for divorce from her back on May 18 in Williamson County Chancery Court, just outside of Nashville.
In the wake of the announcement, Bunnie released a tell-all episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast (which has since been removed from her YouTube page), where she revealed a lot of why they decided to split, addressed dating rumors and revealed that Jelly was already dating, and she also explained the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak, that led to the divorce papers being filed, which Jelly did after a huge fight they had on Mother’s Day.
And of course, Bri has a lot to say about all of it.
She explained that she could relate to what Bunnie is going through, explaining that she thinks Bunnie continues to speak so highly of Jelly Roll because she wants to protect him, and because she hasn’t “fully stepped out of the situation yet,” while ignoring the obvious fact that not every single relationship that ends is the same as her and Zach.
She says:
“Here’s the thing… she doesn’t mean that. She doesn’t mean that. She’s still under the mind control of him, and this is why I know that she doesn’t mean that, because all of her closest friends are reposting… you know her girls, that you always see her with, they are reposting the most asinine, crazy insulting videos about Jelly Roll and how he is the worst person and how people only like him because of Bunnie.
Bunnie is just doing the thing where she’s still protecting him, which I went through that at a point too where it’s like, you’re not fully stepped out of the situation yet where you can’t even understand what’s happening to you. And she just still wants to protect him, she still wants to encourage, like she’s gonna step out of this a year from now and be like holy f****** s*** Jelly belly f******* lost weight in the second he drops weight… take it for what it actually is of course there’s probably other proponents that go into it but his ego and how he is as a person clearly changed when he lost the weight.
And he thought that he can do better, he can date someone younger. He’s gonna go for trad wife. 100% gonna go for trad wife. There’s speculation that he is very religious now, and doesn’t align with Bunnie’s background or history. Hey buddy, you were the one that got with an escort, she was an escort, she’s talked about it. You were drug addict and you were going to prison and in and out of jail. Now your morals don’t align with it because you’re f****** skinny? And now you just wanna drop one, I think, the weight, you dropped the weight on your belly, and you dropped the weight of Bunnie, who I think was the only redeeming and beautiful quality about Jelly Roll.
Of course, maybe some people like his music, I don’t know who those are, but the only redeeming thing about him was how much he loved his wife, and how in union they were and how they made it out together. And they built this incredible life from the dark past that they had together.”
Seems like a WHOLE LOT of speculation in those thoughts from Bri, and it also sounds like there’s a whole lot of projection going on in there.
Brianna thinks Bunnie is a large part of how and why Jelly got to this level, and fans loved their story and how they made it together more than they specifically loved Jelly Roll’s music itself (hot take, but I have to say, I tend to agree with her as someone who is not a fan of his music either):
“And then it’s like to finally amount to this point of your life where you’ve made it, and then you lose all this weight and you start talking different and you start acting different and then you drop the woman that saved you and kind of made you. I don’t think there would be Jelly Roll at this level if it wasn’t for Bunnie.
People really saw a beautiful thing in him because of Bunnie in the relationship, regardless that it was with Bunnie or whoever his wife would’ve been, like, that made him likable. and now it’s like, ew, ew. And I see the pain in Bunnie’s eyes, like, I see her trying, I see her posting and like being hot, and she is hot, and she’s sexy, but you can see that she’s hurting.
And it’s like, she’s gonna have to start over from square one, and he’s gonna have such an easier time because he’s the man, and he’s gonna trad wife it and he’s gonna date a young girl, and I hope that they don’t have a baby together.”
Brianna pointed out that there might be other reasons Bunnie is keeping it so cordial, and the former couple is still expecting a child together, via surrogate, sometime soon, so it’s likely that’s a factor as well:
“Also, we don’t know what she has signed. We don’t know what the divorce looks like, where it’s like, obviously when you go through a divorce, it’s gonna be a very long time coming, but you have to go to divorce court, and you have to divvy up all of the money, all of everything. We don’t know what the prenup situation is, we don’t know what that looks like, so it’s like, is she just trying to stay on his good side?”
She added that she thinks it’s “shady” how Jelly Roll responded to Bunnie’s divorce podcast, where he said on stage that everything she said was true. In that podcast, Bunnie talked about how she always loved Jelly Roll more than he loved her, which is actually really sad considering all she did for him:
“I just think it’s so slimy and f***** of Jelly Roll, regardless to get into a fight and be like, go file the divorce then and then doing it without telling her. And then him to get on stage and say go listen to the podcast, I’m never say another word about it again, everything she said was true.
And Bunnie on her podcast say that she always loved him more than he loved her, and him to be like, everything she said is true, breaks my heart for her. Because it’s like, God, if anything, he should love her more, she’s more lovable. I don’t know. I just think it’s f******* shady.”
Brianna summed it up by saying she believes Jelly used Bunnie as a means to get the public to “love him,” and she also said that she looked at both Bunnie, and their relationship in general, differently after Bunnie revealed that Jelly had cheated on her for a year and she stayed with him anyways.
It’s something she’s spoken about publicly, and I’m pretty sure Brianna alleged that Zach cheated on her during their relationship and she stayed with him for a while so I don’t really understand that part, but I digress…
Brianna summed it up by saying Jelly Roll is “icky” and “gross”:
“Saved his life and was with him through everything. Here’s the thing that made me hate Jelly Roll, and also, I used to really admire Bunnie and respect her a lot, until she came forward that he had a year long affair, and she stayed with him through it. That made me look at her differently, and look at the relationship differently.
I think she probably should’ve left after that, and I think maybe that shows exactly what she said, that he really used their relationship as a stepping stone for the public. Didn’t actually respect her, didn’t actually love her. She on the other hand actually did love him, actually did everything for him, actually was his biggest fan. But he just used her as away for the public to love him, and be relatable in the sense of, this is my baby for 10 years.
But if you cheated on her once for a whole year, if you can file for divorce like that, and if she’s saying that he never loved her as much as she loved him, it’s like, he was clearly always a weirdo. And also, you have face tattoos, so you can not sit there and be like, my religious things don’t align with Bunnie anymore.’ Shut up, literally shut up. Shut up. I hate that. Icky, icky, gross.”
Once again… just an INSANE amount of speculation in all of that. Does Brianna know Jelly Roll or Bunnie at all? I know Bunnie showed some support for Bri during the breakup, but she also called her out for throwing her former podcast co-host, Grace O’Malley, under the bus. I don’t get the sense that they’re friends like that, so imagine thinking that just because you had a high-profile breakup, you’re qualified to dissect every other celebrity divorce? And that they’re all the same? And your perception of everything that happened to you is happening to every other woman involved in a separation? And you’re talking about Jelly Roll’s ego? C’mon…
Most of this sounds like some irrational hate for Jelly Roll and Bri reliving her own heartache from the Zach situation. Newsflash, Bri: people get divorced every day. RaeLynn announced it today, Jon and Summer Pardi did recently, Tom Segura and Christina P just announced their divorce yesterday… and they all have nothing to do with you or Zach Bryan. Move on…
Of course, there’s probably so much to this split we’ll never know about. But I think having a decade-long marriage and coming from quite literally nothing to become the household names they are today is QUITE a bit different than Brianna’s relatively short-lived dating relationship with Zach Bryan. But hey, Brianna never misses a chance to chime in…
