After ten years of marriage, Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo divorce.
The two have been virtually inseparable over the past decade: Jelly Roll (real name Jason DeFord) rose to become one of the world’s biggest country stars, while Bunnie (Alyssa DeFord) gained a loyal following as a podcaster. During this time, Jelly and Bunnie showed remarkable openness when talking about themselves and each other – whether about the ups and downs of their relationship, intimate details of their love life or their difficult past.
Jelly Roll repeatedly emphasized that Bunnie had significantly changed the course of his life – including at the Grammys earlier this year, when he accepted the award for Best Contemporary Country Album. “I want to thank my beautiful wife,” he said in his acceptance speech. “Without you, I would never have changed my life. I would have been dead or in prison. Without you and Jesus, I would have killed myself. I thank you for that.”
Fateful encounter
Bunnie, meanwhile, told People earlier this year: “When you’re with someone for a long time, you have to love them even in their darkest moments. I truly believe that true love doesn’t mean accepting things you shouldn’t – but I think everyone deserves a second chance. Loving someone at their lowest point is one of the most beautiful things you can do, especially when they’re thriving and evolving like my husband.”
Details of the couple’s divorce – and the reasons for it – are still unclear (representatives for both sides did not immediately respond to inquiries). Given their openness so far, it seems likely that the whole story will soon come to light. Until then, a look back at Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo’s relationship.
Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo met at a concert in Las Vegas in 2015, when Jelly was opening for country rap duo Moonshine Bandits. In her memoir “Stripped Down,” Bunnie recalled how she was “spellbound” by Jelly’s performance, writing, “That man was not my type. But when I shook his hand, it felt like all the stars in the sky collided. My soul recognized his. It’s like I’ve been looking for him my whole life.”
Meeting of two worlds
At this point, Jelly Roll was an up-and-coming musician with a handful of mixtapes, collaborative projects, and a single proper studio album under his belt. There was also a turbulent past: in his early twenties he had spent time in prison for drug and robbery offences. These experiences had driven him to music, but his big breakthrough was still pending.
Bunnie had a difficult, unstable and abusive childhood. As an adult, she first worked as a stripper before becoming a high-priced escort. She often described sex work as “my way of taking my power back” after being sexually abused and raped at a young age.
Bunnie’s past in sex work didn’t deter Jelly Roll – he actually had little idea what life as a high-priced escort meant. “When I met her, I was living in a ’96 van and playing shows for a hundred dollars a night,” Jelly Roll said in a 2022 interview with Bert Kreischer. “I was completely broke and she was just attracted to me. She was making real money in the sex work industry – real money. I didn’t even know such a thing existed.”
Flash romance and Vegas wedding
Shortly after their first meeting, Jelly Roll invited Bunnie to accompany him on tour. In her memoir, she described it as “the most intense but also greatest way to start a relationship” – although she had reservations as she was emerging from a difficult second marriage. “I needed to be alone and take matters into my own hands,” she wrote. “I needed to fall in love with myself and heal. But then this sweet-talking country boy came along and I was blown away.”
In 2016, Jelly Roll asked her to marry him at another Las Vegas gig. His proposal reportedly read: “Do you want to marry your pretty ass to my white trash ass in Las Vegas tonight?” That same evening they exchanged vows in a chapel in the city of sin.
Jelly Roll repeatedly emphasized that Bunnie was a crucial anchor in his life. While continuing her career in sex work, Bunnie helped Jelly Roll finance musical projects such as the 2017 album Addiction Kills and fought for custody of his daughter from a previous relationship. With tears in his eyes, Jelly Roll 2023 remembered how Bunnie also helped him find an apartment so his daughter could have a home and a good school.
Early years and setbacks
“I’ll never forget Bunnie looking at me and – this makes me emotional – saying, ‘No matter what happens between us, I’m going to help you get this girl,'” Jelly recalled. “And I thought, What a character… Because I was broke. I couldn’t afford the lawyer, I couldn’t afford anything. What was I going to do – put the kid in the van? And Bunnie says, ‘I’ll help you.'”
But there were other challenges too. In her memoir, Bunnie detailed a tumultuous period during which she and Jelly Roll shuttled between Las Vegas and Nashville, trying to come to terms with their relationship and their personal demons. Bunnie was also battling cocaine and pill addiction at the time and cited the custody battle over Jelly Roll’s daughter Bailee as one of the reasons she wanted to get clean.
Bunnie also wrote that she and Jelly Roll argued frequently during this time and that he once cheated on her with an ex. The couple briefly separated in 2018, but eventually couples therapy brought some stability to their relationship.
“My husband and I dug deep into the toxic patterns we grew up with,” she wrote. “And we’ve talked about it so many times that we don’t want to just repeat what we were taught. Now we were together on this way. It finally felt so good to have my best friend back and to work together to become better people. When I think back, we simply made a promise to change. And we kept it. No matter how hard it got. No matter what the other person said in therapy, we were both finally fully ready to work on ourselves both together and separately.”
Infidelity and new beginnings
In 2025, Jelly Roll described his infidelity as “one of the worst moments” of his life. He continued, “I’ve worked a lot on repairing this relationship, you know? The healing was special. And we are stronger than ever. I wish our story had been such that there had never been an affair – and I’m in no way glad that it happened – but I’m proud of who we are today.”
In 2020, Jelly Roll’s music career finally began to take off. In the following years, hits like “Save Me,” “Son of a Sinner” and “Need a Favor” made him one of the most sought-after country stars worldwide. In November 2022, the two celebrated their red carpet appearance together at the CMA Awards. A few months later, in April 2023, Jelly Roll won his first professional awards – three trophies at the CMT Music Awards.
“A man who was told no at every turn and still outsmarted Nashville time and time again and fought his way to the top,” Bunnie wrote in a celebratory post on Instagram. “I always tell you you’ve got a horseshoe stuck up your ass, but that’s not it, baby. This is pure will – spreading light, moving mountains, touching broken souls with your voice, breaking through generational trauma and setting examples for the future.”
Bunnie’s own rise
At the same time, Bunnie Xo was forging her own new path. In 2019, she started a podcast called “Dumb Blonde” at her kitchen table, which she initially funded in part through sex work and a new OnlyFans account. By 2022, the podcast was so successful that she was able to quit sex work and close her OnlyFans account.
In 2023, Jelly Roll posted a “Bunnie Appreciation post” on Instagram and wrote, “I watch what this woman has overcome and her passion and determination to be something better has inspired me from the first moment I met her. She saved me during one of my darkest periods. She has always been nothing but supportive.” Regarding her podcast success, Jelly Roll emphasized that Bunnie did it all on her own: “She didn’t want to just be ‘Jelly Roll’s wife’ – she wanted to build her own empire to empower women and tell her story in the hopes of motivating others to believe they can change their lives and be happy.”
Speaking to The New York Times in 2023, Jelly Roll recalled the conversations he and Bunnie had about the day she would be able to quit sex work. “We discussed this early on, when we were still dreamers lying in bed together – I was really broke and it was pretty burned out, too,” he said. “That was our dream. To see it come true is incredible. It’s a modern American fairy tale. Kind of a white trash fairy tale, but in this way [beschissene] Kind of poetic and beautiful.”
Vow renewal in Vegas
In 2023, seven years after their Vegas wedding, Jelly Roll and Bunnie returned to the same chapel to renew their wedding vows. “7 years ago I stumbled into a small chapel in Las Vegas with my wife,” Jelly Roll wrote on Instagram. “7 years later, we entered the same little chapel and repeated our vows… My only regret the night we got married was that I never saw her in a dress… We’ve made up for that now. I may never have given my wife the wedding she truly deserved, but I plan on giving her the rest of my life that she deserves. I love you more than anything, Mama Bear. You are my anchor.”
Bunnie added in her own post: “Before we stumbled into that chapel, you took my hands, looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Bunnie, our lives won’t always be like this. You won’t have to do what you’re doing much longer – we’ll get this done. I promise you that.’ I had no idea what the world had in store for us, but I didn’t care as long as I had you by my side to get through it all.”
The final act
By all accounts, Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo’s relationship seemed stronger and more solid than ever in the years leading up to their divorce. Jelly Roll continued to produce hits while Dumb Blonde remained a hugely popular podcast. He also had his old drug and robbery offenses pardoned in Tennessee and lost several hundred pounds. (“He was beautiful before, but now I find myself doting on him; he looks so good!” Bunnie told People earlier this year.)
The couple also worked to expand their family. While raising Jelly’s two children from other relationships, Bailee and Noah, they announced in 2024 that they were trying to have a child together through in vitro fertilization. However, the efforts do not appear to have been successful. In August 2025, Bunnie said on her podcast that she had been “on IVF drugs for six fucking months and going through heartbreak and so much fucking shit.” Earlier this year, she called IVF “one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through.”
The divorce
Although the news only broke on Monday, June 15, Jelly Roll reportedly filed for divorce in Williamson County Court in Tennessee back in May. According to court documents, Jelly Roll cited “irreconcilable differences” and said he and Bunnie were “unable to live together successfully as husband and wife.”