Months before Jelly Roll filed for divorce, Bunnie Xo stood by her decision to revisit his affair in her memoir, saying betrayal was a process to grieve—and insisting the book is ultimately about how they rebuilt their relationship.
Bunnie Xo didn’t treat the affair as a footnote. In her memoir, released in February, she went straight back to the part of her life that still hurts—just months before Jelly Roll filed for divorce on May 18 after nearly 10 years of marriage.
Her book, “Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic,” addresses how the couple—married in 2016—found their way back together. It also recounts how the road to rebuilding wasn’t simple. Bunnie described how they moved into a home in Las Vegas. but Jelly Roll. 41. later moved back to Nashville without telling her. 46.
She told Us Weekly ahead of the book’s release that she understands betrayal doesn’t vanish on command. “Betrayal is always hard to get over. I don’t think anybody can just snap out of it,” Bunnie said. “It is a process. You’re literally grieving and you’re heartbroken, but you’re still in love with this person.”.
The memoir doesn’t shy away from the messy truth either. Bunnie described what happened behind her back, writing about the fact that Jelly Roll was talking to his ex.
Still, she drew a line around what she wanted readers to take from it.
“Even though the affair is a part of the book, it’s not our story,” she said. “It’s literally what catapulted us into who we are today.”
She said she hoped readers would slow down instead of reducing everything to headlines. “Readers need to definitely consume it, chew on it and think about it,” she continued. “But they also [should] see what we’ve made from that entire situation.”
Bunnie argued the experience reshaped more than their public narrative. “It completely changed who we are as humans and how we looked at love. We didn’t know how to love each other properly,” she said. “We both were raised in opposite households but weren’t taught how to love correctly.”
In her view, the affair can swallow the rest of the story. “I think a lot of that gets brushed over when people are like. ‘Oh. he had an affair.’ And it’s just like. ‘Well. no. actually. As a child. he wasn’t taught how to love properly and I wasn’t taught how to love or receive love. ’” she added.
She also made clear that their family reality never stops shaping the stakes. Bunnie said there are “many factors that go into play,” including Jelly Roll’s daughter, Bailee—whom she described as her child. “She’s literally mine. I may not have birthed her, but that’s my child,” she said.
She noted that Bailee, whom Jelly Roll has full custody of, played a major role in the couple’s choices and her desire not to leave a child in another broken home. “She definitely played a huge factor and I didn’t want to raise her in another broken home,” Bunnie said.
She added that she wasn’t trying to argue people should stay put. “Granted. I’m never saying stay for the children because that’s not what I’m saying at all. ” she continued. “But definitely whether her father and I stayed together was always going to try to be in her life to help guide her in some sort of way.”.
Jelly Roll has addressed the affair as well, before the divorce filing. He admitted that the moment was one of the worst of his adulthood. During an October 2025 episode of the “Human School” podcast, he said, “One of the worst moments of my adulthood was when I had an affair on my wife.”
He described it as a jarring realization that he wasn’t getting it right. “Because it was the first time that I was like, ‘I really can’t get this right at all. I know I’m in love with this woman,’” Jelly Roll said. “It just really, really, really blew me back.”
He also said he put in “a lot of work to repair” the relationship, which he believes made them “stronger than we could have ever been.” In his own words, “I wish our story would’ve went in the way that it never had an affair,” he said. “I’m proud of who we are today. I truly am.”
Bunnie’s memoir returned to the exact rupture Jelly Roll acknowledged. placing the affair and its consequences in the same frame as the couple’s attempt to rebuild. And now. with the divorce filed on May 18. her insistence that readers look past the scandal lands with sharper weight: the story she wrote wasn’t just about betrayal—it was about what came after it. and what it cost.
Bunnie Xo Jelly Roll divorce memoir Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic Human School podcast Las Vegas Nashville Bailee entertainment news