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Sources Say Jelly Roll’s Deepening Christian Faith Is the Real Reason Behind the Bunnie XO Divorce

Side by side photo of Jelly Roll holding a Bible at the Grammy Awards and Bunnie XO posing in a glamorous, revealing outfit, the contrast highlighting the couple's very different public images amid their divorce.
by
  • Riley is a Senior Country Music Journalist for Country Thang Daily, known for her engaging storytelling and insightful coverage of the genre.
  • Before joining Country Thang Daily, Riley developed her expertise at Billboard and People magazine, focusing on feature stories and music reviews.
  • Riley has a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Belmont University, with a minor in Cultural Studies.

The divorce documents said irreconcilable differences. Now two anonymous sources are filling in the blanks, and they’re telling very different stories.

According to the Daily Mail, an insider claimed that Jelly Roll’s increasingly public Christian faith created an impossible gap between him and Bunnie XO. “There is just such a conflict in what’s going on. He’s preaching this Christian way of life. She’s posing mostly naked and talking about porn and penises on her podcast,” the source said, referring to Bunnie’s D𝐮mb Blonde podcast. “At every turn she’s just kind of embarrassing him and wrecking every PR narrative that they’re trying to create. This is the talk of the town [in Nashville].”

That’s one version. The second source painted a completely different picture.

“There’s so much money in Christian music, but his renewed faith is just an act in my opinion,” the second source told the Daily Mail. “He saw a lot of money in this market and told Bunnie to get it together. But she wouldn’t stay in line and it is destroying his brand. She just wants to be what she is. She’s been an escort and in porn and gets her validation and audience from being in a G-string. That’s been her life, but now, suddenly, he’s a preacher, and she’s a preacher’s wife.”

So one source says Jelly Roll genuinely found God, and Bunnie couldn’t keep up. The other says the faith is a business strategy, and he wanted Bunnie to play a role she never signed up for. Both sources agree on exactly one thing: Bunnie refused to change who she was.

The Timeline Makes Both Stories More Complicated

Here’s where it gets messy. On February 1, Jelly Roll stood on the Grammy stage with a Bible in one hand and a Grammy in the other and told millions of viewers, “Jesus is for everybody. Jesus is not owned by one political party. Jesus is not owned by no music label.” In the same speech, he thanked Bunnie directly, saying, “I would have never changed my life without you. I’d have ended up dead or in jail. I’d have killed myself if it wasn’t for you and Jesus.”

He thanked Jesus and Bunnie in the same breath. Four months later, he filed for divorce.

On February 8, just one week after that Grammy speech, Bunnie said on D𝐮mb Blonde that “people are weaponizing the Bible and religion way more than they are celebrating the name of Jesus.” She didn’t name anyone specifically, but the timing is hard to ignore. In her memoir, she wrote about her reluctance to identify as a Christian because of the way some people who claimed to believe in Jesus actually behaved.

That doesn’t sound like a woman who rejected faith. That sounds like a woman who had a problem with how faith was being used.

And the idea that Bunnie’s lifestyle was somehow a surprise to Jelly Roll doesn’t hold up either. He knew exactly who she was when he married her in 2016. He knew when they renewed their vows in 2023. He knew when she published a 300-page memoir about her life as an escort four months before the separation. Bunnie shut down her OnlyFans and retired from sex work in 2023, writing on Facebook, “I had faith and let God have it and he made sure I made it back 10 fold.” She literally credited God for that decision.

So the narrative that Bunnie was somehow anti-faith while Jelly Roll was finding Jesus falls apart when you actually look at what she said and did. She retired from the industry on her own terms, built D𝐮mb Blonde into one of the biggest podcasts in the country, and credited her faith for the change. She just wasn’t willing to stop being herself entirely.

The podcast still discusses adult topics. Her social media is still bold. That’s Bunnie. It’s always been, Bunnie. And Jelly Roll married her twice, knowing that.

Neither Jelly Roll nor Bunnie has commented on the Daily Mail report. Their daughter Bailee Ann, 18, posted on TikTok on June 16, writing, “I am disgusted at how invested everyone is in a very clearly private family matter. It’s fkn cr𝐚zy. Go on somewhere yall. Worry bout your house, not mine.”

She added, “I’m not speaking on it, yet.”

That “yet” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Anonymous sources can say whatever they want. The court documents say irreconcilable differences. And somewhere between a Grammy speech where a man thanked his wife and God in the same sentence and a courthouse filing nine days after separation, something broke that two unnamed insiders can only guess at. The only people who actually know what happened aren’t talking. At least not yet.

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