It wasn’t a perfect relationship, but none of them are. As first reported by TMZ, Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason DeFord, filed for divorce from his wife Bunnie Xo, whose real name is Alisa DeFord, back on May 18 in Williamson County Chancery Court, just outside of Nashville. They were married for nearly ten years, and while neither of the two have publicly addressed the separation, though TMZ reported that it was a “mutual decision” and a “private family matter.” Whiskey Riff obtained a copy of the divorce complaint that was filed by the “Save Me” singer, which reveals that the couple separated on May 9, a week and a half before the request for a divorce was filed. He cites “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. Jelly Roll has hired Rose Palermo, a high-profile divorce attorney to the stars who has represented other celebrities like Kelsea Ballerini, Kristin Cavallari, Conway Twitty, Wynona Judd, and many, many more. For her part, Bunnie is represented by Neil Campbell of Campbell Perky Johnson, PLLC, a Nashville-based divorce firm. 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. In an interview just a couple months ago with E! News, Bunnie explained that they were in a “beautiful place,” but things weren’t always sunshine and rainbows between them: “I want people to know, ‘Hey, it took a lot of work, guts and grit to get to where we are, Everything’s beautiful now, but it wasn’t in the beginning. Just us being together was just two souls that were merging that were broken and just formed a whole piece. And we helped each other heal, and we have continued to elevate and grow in these past 10 years. I couldn’t be happier. That dude’s my best friend.” She released her memoir in February, called Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic, where she details a ton of information about their marriage, from how they met in August of 2015, when Jelly was just starting out and living in a van, and she admits that he was not her type, but the second she met him, she felt like she’d known him her whole life. After months of texting, they eventually decided to give it chance, even though Bunnie admits Jelly was not her usual type: “J wasn’t my type—­I love tough guys, or goth, emo boys in eyeliner. I wasn’t his type either. So why the hell was my soul telling me there he is the minute we met? I couldn’t explain it. Our chemistry was insane, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” They went through a lot, Bunnie was still a high-end call girl at the time and making a ton of money, and Jelly was not bothered by her line of work… she says he viewed her as a hard worker, and unlike everyone else she’d ever dated, he’d never made her feel bad for what she did. Eventually, she left sex work behind, though for years, Bunnie and Jelly had what she described as a “free” relationship, where it wasn’t always just the two of them. She explained in the book that she thought allowing third parties in would save the relationship from the cheating she’d always experienced in her other relationships: “I thought my openness and willingness to have third parties would save me from all the other cheating I’d experienced in my life. But if a girl wanted to come home with us, we more than likely wouldn’t turn her down.” And if Bunnie ever wanted to get with another man, Jelly had no problem with it, which she was hurt by at first, saying she felt: “Like he didn’t really love me if he wasn’t possessive and jealous. We both live by the motto that we aren’t each other’s possessions, and consider our relationship to be free, not open.” But she did have one rule, that he could never “lie” to her or let her “be the last to know something,” and ultimately, Jelly did have an affair with another woman, which Bunnie found out about after a long time of being suspicious, around 2018. He denied it for a long time, but eventually, she figured it out, and Jelly moved out and wanted to end his marriage with Bunnie. She says the pain was “so intense” that she wanted to “end it all,” and after all of it, she swore she would never speak to him again. The woman having the affair with Jelly eventually admitted everything, and Bunnie says she was most hurt by the emotional aspect of the cheating, rather than the physical: “She told me about how he got a house for them to live in and he wanted her to stay at home and take care of Bailee. And out of everything, that’s what made me sick. It wasn’t about him f****** this broad—­it was about emotionally cheating and then wanting her to play mommy to a little girl I’d fallen in love with.” Yeah, I’m not sure most people could come back from something like that… Eventually, though, she did forgive Jelly, though she admits it took a long time for her to put the emotions she had from the affair aside: “When a man puts you through something like that, you never stop loving them, you just love them differently. Your heart is more guarded. Less trusting. Cracked. I’m not going to pretend that we just went back to normal. It would take years for me to put the affair aside. It would take years to actually feel like this man loved me—­ that I wasn’t disposable.” Bunnie and Jelly have both noted in separate interviews that they’re no longer in a “free marriage” and that it’s been exclusive for a long time. Last year, Bunnie addressed those rumors directly saying that they were never in an open marriage to begin with, and that they just didn’t believe in controlling one another. However, she says that their willingness to have other people in bed with them ended a long time ago: “You guys are clipping clips from like 6 years ago… We have completely stopped all of those shenanigans because you can’t trust anybody in the world. Back in the day, that was how we looked at our relationship.” @ohheyitsbunnie Last time I’m ever addressing this, let’s move on shall we? #jellyandbunnie ♬ original sound – Bunnie From the outside looking in, it seemed like they had a pretty strong marriage by the end of it, and like I mentioned, they’ve always been very open about their struggles, so it’s no secret it hasn’t always been easy for them. Just a few months, during her book tour interview with Howard Stern, Bunnie said they were in a great place and gonna ride it out together until the end. It seems like something has changed and I’m not going to speculate on what that could be. You never really know what’s going on in people’s lives, and hopefully, the divorce can be as smooth as possible, and for the children that Bunnie has helped raise, hopefully they can remain close with her and continue to be a family in a different way now.The post Bunnie XO Previously Opened Up About “Free” Marriage & Jelly Roll’s Infidelity, But Squashed Rumor They Had An “Open Marriage” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.