Court records reviewed in mid-June show Jelly Roll filed for divorce May 18, after their separation began May 9. Months earlier, Bunnie Xo described infidelity, escalating arguments, and a period of separation in her memoir “Stripped Down.”
On May 9, Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo separated. Less than two weeks later, on May 18, Jelly Roll—whose real name is Jason DeFord—filed for divorce from his podcaster wife, whose real name is Alisa DeFord. The filing marks the latest turn in a marriage that Bunnie had already begun re-living in print.
Court records reviewed on Monday, June 15 show the divorce filing, and note that the couple had been married for 10 years. Bunnie Xo’s memoir, “Stripped Down,” published Feb. 17 by Dey Street Books. lays out the sequence that led to those May dates: a quick early romance after his concert in Las Vegas. a spontaneous courthouse wedding shortly after. and a relationship that quickly collided with custody battles. betrayal. and strain.
In the book. Bunnie takes readers back to the couple’s first meeting at a concert in Las Vegas and the “spontaneous courthouse wedding” that followed. She then describes a “whirlwind” relationship shaped by a custody battle for Jelly Roll’s daughter from a previous marriage. As they worked through those early storms, Bunnie wrote that their full custody arrangement pulled them to Nashville.
But Nashville brought new pressure. Bunnie writes that coming back meant “women from J’s past were resurfacing. ” and she describes how “cracks were forming” in their marriage. She says arguments became more frequent as she felt she had to “fight for my spot among the females in Nashville.” Their early attempts at couples therapy. she wrote. were “one of the lowest points in our relationship. ” filled with “screaming matches.”.
She also describes suspecting cheating before finding out he had a 10-month affair with an ex-fling. At one point in the period she recounts. Jelly Roll packed up his and his daughter’s things and left without a goodbye. The couple agreed to a three-month separation. and Bunnie alleges Jelly Roll announced their breakup on social media without telling her first.
Bunnie’s memoir also describes how she and Jelly Roll reconnected around the time his album “Waylon & Willie 2” came out. She says she still can’t listen to the album all the way through, writing it sounds like “a man smack-dab in the middle of an affair, pouring his guilt into his lyrics.”
Even after moving to the suburbs of Nashville together, Bunnie writes they still weren’t back to normal. She says Jelly Roll told her he didn’t regret the affair. and that their arguments “even went to the point of me putting my hands on him.” In one line from the memoir. she writes. “It would take years to actually feel like this man loved me – that I wasn’t disposable.”.
As the memoir moves toward its end, Bunnie writes from a more reconciled place. She thanks Jelly Roll as her “best friend. ” adding that she included the stories to show “all the things we’ve overcome.” She also writes. “It doesn’t mean I’m weak. and it doesn’t mean he is a horrible person. It means that we were two people who fell in love but didn’t know how to maintain love in healthy ways. ” and continues: “We were two strangers who rushed to the altar in 2016 and became parents of a traumatized seven-year-old in 2017. Fully sober in 2018. It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.”.
The book also describes another effort to rebuild and expand the family: Bunnie shares that the couple started IVF and were planning to have twins via a surrogate, which she dubs her “baby mama era.”
Later developments in the couple’s wider public profile add another layer to the story. Variety reported in March that the producers of “Landman” and “Yellowstone” acquired the rights for a film adaptation of the memoir. The couple, however, have yet to comment publicly on the divorce filings.
Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo have not made public statements about the May divorce filing. Representatives for Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo were reached for comment as of Monday, June 15, but the pair had not responded publicly.
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