Bunnie Xo, the wife of country rock musician Jelly Roll, says she felt a deep betrayal by her husband’s infidelity that caused her to contemplate suicide.
The podcaster and vlogger, real name Alyssa DeFord, released her new memoir Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic this month. In one chapter, she revisits her early marriage to the three-time Grammy winner.
The couple married in 2016 after one year of dating but began experiencing problems in their relationship two years later that prompted Jelly Roll to move out of their house. The musician left with his daughter, Bailee, from a previous relationship.
According to Page Six, Bunnie was “depressed” after the fight but later went to one of her husband’s concerts, which made him “irate.” Their issues worsened when Bunnie confronted Jelly Roll about an affair, and although he denied it, the podcaster later discovered that “he had his ex-fling waiting for him in a hotel down the street.”
Later, the wife of Jelly Roll’s best friend confirmed the “suspicions” that Bunnie had about her husband being unfaithful.
“That night I contemplated taking my life,” she wrote. “The pain was so intense that I genuinely just wanted to end it all.”
The podcaster said she grabbed a bottle of pills from her bathroom and thought about “what it would feel like to die from an overdose.”
“Would it hurt? Would I just fall asleep? What if it didn’t work and I woke up in a hospital? Would J even care if I was dead?” Bunnie wrote.
After taking a “deep breath” and deciding not to give in, she and Jelly ultimately agreed to a three-month separation. The musician later said that his affair was with the daughter of a drug dealer.
The couple relocated back to Nashville together, but Bunnie found out that he had been in contact with the woman for a 10-month period.
“From that day on, I didn’t want information from him anymore,” Bunnie wrote. “He had his chance and he squandered it. So I talked to her.”
Among the trove of videos and screenshots that the woman sent, she also revealed that Jelly Roll had bought a house for her.
“And out of everything, that’s what made me sick,” Bunnie wrote. “It wasn’t about him fucking this broad—it was about emotionally cheating.”
While Bunnie came to forgive her husband, their relationship didn’t immediately “go back to normal.” On one instance, Jelly Roll said he “didn’t regret cheating,” which made Bunnie feel “homicidal.”
“It would take years for me to put the affair aside,” Bunnie wrote. “It would take years to actually feel like this man loved me—that I wasn’t disposable.”
Bunnie shared with Extra that she and Jelly Roll had an open relationship when they began dating, although this has since ended.
For more information about suicide prevention or to speak with someone confidentially, call or text with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.