Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo’s divorce had been building behind the scenes for years over their changing lifestyles.
“Some people around them felt there was growing tension as Jelly embraced a more faith-centered lifestyle while Bunnie continued building the outspoken and provocative brand that had always been authentic to her,” a source exclusively told Page Six.
“Whether that’s fair or not, it became increasingly difficult to reconcile those two worlds.”
The insider continued to claim, “A lot of people want to point to one thing, but it was really a combination of issues that had been building for years.”
“They came from similar worlds when they met and bonded over surviving difficult circumstances, but over time their lives started moving in different directions,” the source said. “Jelly has changed tremendously over the last few years. His focus shifted to his health, faith, family and the long-term legacy he wants to leave behind.”
The “Dumb Blonde” podcast host shared a racy image just hours before news broke of Jelly’s divorce filing.
Bunnie shared a steamy photo of herself wearing pink satin lingerie. In the snap, she sat up on her knees on a brown couch as she began to take off her bra strap.
“She’s getting her sparkle back,” she wrote atop the photo.
“Bunnie has always been unapologetically herself, and while that’s something [Jelly’s] admired about her, there were times when it felt like they were no longer aligned with where he saw his life heading or what he envisioned for the future,” the source said.
In January, Bunnie opened up about how she and Jelly Roll were trying to have a baby via in vitro fertilization.
The insider told Page Six, “There were also difficult conversations about expanding their family, timing and what they both wanted their future to look like. Those discussions became more complicated as his career continued to explode.”
In 2018, Bunnie and Jelly briefly separated after the “Son of a Sinner” singer had a months-long affair.
“When you add in the pressure of fame, constant public scrutiny and then the unresolved issues from the earlier years of their marriage, including trust issues they worked hard to overcome, it created a situation where they kept finding themselves having the same conversations over and over,” the source said.
“The sad part is that Bunnie stood by him through everything. She was there before the fame, before all the awards, before his sold out shows.”
“She stayed through some incredibly difficult periods, including challenges that would have ended a lot of marriages,” the insider added.
Reps for Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
It was revealed on Monday that the “Wild Ones” singer, 41, whose real name is Jason Bradley DeFord, filed for divorce from Bunnie, 46, on May 18 after almost a decade of marriage.
The legal documents, which were filed in Williamson County, Tennessee, cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for their breakup.
Jelly Roll and Bunnie, whose real name is Alisa Andrea Carter, secretly tied the knot at a Las Vegas courthouse in August 2016 — just one year after the couple met at one of the country singer’s concerts.
They married the same night that Jelly Roll proposed. In 2023, they renewed their vows.
During their relationship, Bunnie served as a stepmother to Jelly Roll’s two children — daughter Bailee Ann, 18, and son Noah Buddy, 9.

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Jelly Roll’s daughter, Bailee Ann, is “disgusted” over the recent chatter involving her dad’s recent divorce filing from her stepmother, Bunnie Xo. .
On Tuesday, the 18-year-old posted a TikTok video after news broke that the country music star had filed for divorce from his wife of nearly ten years.
“Oh & one more thing I am disgusted at how invested everyone is in a very clearly private family matter,” Bailee Ann wrote. “It’s f—n crazy. Go on somewhere yall. Worry bout your house- not mine. I’m not speaking on it – yet.”
DIVORCE BOOM MAY FOLLOW USE OF OZEMPIC AND OTHER GLP-1 DRUGS, EXPERTS WARN
“I can say on a more positive note — thank you to everyone who is showing me so much love and kindness through everything,” she wrote in a separate post. “At the end of the day, no matter what, we are all humans with feelings and that is worthy of compassion.”
“Thank you for the kind messages, the words of support, and those of you who go out of your way to make me feel protected & seen,” she continued. “I love yall. I will never forget those of you that have shown me empathy when I’m seeing a lot of hate. Thank you. So much. And to everyone else, I hope humanity can evolve to a place where kindness comes first. I understand & respect opinions and that a public profile is a public profile, but that doesn’t have to mean we throw away our human decency. I love ALL of you.”
Jelly Roll filed for divorce on May 18 in Williamson County, Tennessee, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital. The 41-year-old country star listed the date of separation as May 9 and cited irreconcilable differences.
JELLY ROLL FILES FOR DIVORCE FROM WIFE BUNNIE XO AFTER ALMOST A DECADE OF MARRIAGE
A source told People that the two have “always had a complicated dynamic” throughout their relationship.
“When they first got together, they were both in a very different place in their lives,” the source said. “There was a lot of chaos, ups and downs, and they built a life together through all of that.”
The source noted that Jelly — who has been on a weight loss journey — has “changed a lot.”
“He’s very focused on his future, his health and being around for a long time,” the source said, adding that “there wasn’t a moment where everything fell apart.”
On Tuesday evening, Bunnie posted a selfie on Instagram accompanied by the Heart’s “Magic Man.”
“‘Come on home, girl’ he said with a smile / ‘You don’t have to love me yet’ / let’s get high awhile /But try to understand, try to understand /Try, try, try to understand, I’m a magic man.”
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Weeks before news broke that the country star had filed for divorce, the pair had seemingly been dropping subtle hints of marriage woes. From cryptic song lyrics to ditched wedding rings, the signs were there — they just went largely unnoticed.
On May 20, two days after Jelly Roll’s filing, Bunnie took to TikTok to share some intuitive thoughts.
“Women’s intuition when that s— don’t add up” she captioned the video.
JELLY ROLL’S WIFE BODY SLAMS HIM IN PLAYFUL TIKTOK VIDEO AFTER SINGER SHEDS 200 POUNDS
“She been dropping hints this whole time and we missed it lol,” one fan commented, after the divorce news broke.
“Bunnie was dropping the tea in real time and we all did not clock it,” another added.
On June 4, Jelly Roll performed at CMA Fest in Nashville sans his wedding ring.
JELLY ROLL SAYS 16-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER IS ‘SO MUCH SMARTER’ THAN HE WAS AT THE AGE HE WAS ARRESTED
One day later, Bunnie shared a peaceful video of herself riding a horse in the countryside. She accompanied the video with lyrics from Aerosmith’s “What It Takes” and a caption that read, “Wild hearts can’t be broken.”
“There goes my old girlfriend / There’s another diamond ring / And all those late night promises I guess they don’t mean a thing / So baby, what’s the story? Did you find another man?”
On June 6, Bunnie posted another video of herself enjoying the serene outdoors with some girlfriends. She paired the video with lyrics from the Goo Goo Dolls’ hit “Name.”
“Did you lose yourself somewhere out there / Did you get to be a star? / And don’t it make you sad to know that life / Is more than who we are?”
WATCH: JELLY ROLL REVEALS SECRET TO HIS STRONG MARRIAGE TO BUNNIE XO
Hours before the divorce news went public on Monday, Bunnie posted a video of herself lip-syncing the lyrics to Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me.” Bunnie’s wedding ring was visibly missing.
“It’s not like you didn’t know that / I said, ‘I love you,’ and I swear, I still do / And it must have been so bad / ‘Cause living with me must have damn near killed you.”
Representatives for Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo have not responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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Long before they became one of country music’s closely watched couples, the pair weathered difficult truths — including the night Bunnie learned Jelly Roll’s ex-fling was waiting for him “in a hotel room down the street.”
“When I found out about it, I was devastated,” she told Fox News Digital in February. “I was hurt because I didn’t think he would be the one person to do that. I thought he was different. And at that moment, my heart was broken. But instead of getting mad at him, I asked myself, ‘Why do I keep attracting these kinds of men?’”
Bunnie admitted she hadn’t envisioned a conventional marriage.
“I think a lot of people need to realize that coming into this marriage, we weren’t a traditional bride and groom,” she explained.
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“I was a working girl, and he was an ex-drug dealer — a gangster-turned-struggling artist. There’s a different set of rules on the street than there are in what I’d call traditional marriages. If you’ve never lived that lifestyle, you’re not going to understand. But of course, cheating is wrong across the board — it doesn’t matter.”

The use of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist medications continues to rise, with a 155% increase in the percentage of people with type 2 diabetes taking these drugs from 2018 to 2022.
The use of GLP-1s for weight loss is also increasing. The latest polls report that of the one in eight Americans who have taken a GLP-1 medication, about 38% have only taken them to help lose weight.
“Hundreds of millions of people are taking or will soon take GLP-1 medications for the treatment of obesity and diabetes,” Aparna Kamat, MD, director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Houston Methodist Hospital, told Medical News Today.
Kamat is the senior author of a new study published in the journal Annals of Oncology that found a potential link between taking GLP-1 medications, such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, and Mounjaro, and a decrease in the overall risk of developing obesity-related cancers in people without diabetes.
“However, the majority of individuals now receiving GLP-1 medications are using them for obesity management and do not have diabetes. This is the population that has been invisible in the literature, and it is now the largest group using these drugs. They are younger, they don’t have diabetes, and they are experiencing some of the sharpest increases in obesity-associated cancers we’ve seen in decades,” she said.
At the study’s conclusion, researchers found that participants who took GLP-1 medications containing semaglutide or tirzepatide had a 41% decrease in their overall risk of developing an obesity-related cancer.
“A 41% reduction across more than 229,000 patients is not a small signal,” Kamat said. “That is the kind of number that, in any other context, would already be driving clinical guidelines.”
“Endometrial cancer is rising fastest in younger women, it is tightly linked to obesity, and we have almost nothing to offer for prevention,” Kamat explained. “A 58% reduction is extraordinary. If that holds up in prospective studies, it changes how we think about this disease entirely, and this finding provides a strong rationale for further mechanistic and clinical studies focused on endometrial cancer prevention and treatment.”
The most dramatic drops in risk, where this reduction was by 50% or more, also occurred in multiple myeloma, pancreatic cancer, and colorectal cancer, in addition to endometrial cancer.
“Separating them is one of the most important questions in the field right now. We know GLP-1 receptors are expressed directly on certain cancer cells. That means the drug could be acting on the tumor itself, not just shrinking the patient,” she said.
“If that’s true, weight loss is not the whole story but weight loss is likely an important contributor because excess adiposity promotes chronic inflammation, hormonal dysregulation, insulin resistance, and other processes linked to cancer development. Determining the relative contribution of these mechanisms remains an important area of ongoing investigation,” she explained.
David Greenberg, MD, FACP, section chief of Hematology/Oncology at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center in New Jersey, who was not involved in this study, commented that he was not surprised by this study’s results, as we’ve known for decades that lifestyle, obesity, and toxic exposures play a critical role in the development of cell mutation and cancer.
MNT spoke with Lauren Carcas, MD, a medical oncologist with Miami Cancer Institute, part of Baptist Health South Florida, about this study’s findings, who commented that while they’re exciting, the data must be interpreted in context.
“The observational design of the study allows for potential confounding of results as it does not take into account socioeconomic status, physical activity levels, dietary quality, and health-seeking behavior from the persons evaluated,” Carcas, who was not involved in this study, explained.

Jelly Roll has filed for divorce from his wife Bunnie Xo.
The country star filed the paperwork on May 18 in Williamson County, Tennessee, according to court records viewed by Fox News Digital.
Jelly Roll listed the date of separation as May 9, and cited irreconcilable differences.
Bunnie, whose real name is Alisa DeFord, and Jelly Roll tied the knot in August 2016 during a whirlwind Las Vegas ceremony, after meeting the year prior.
Fox News Digital has reached out to representatives for Jelly Roll for comment.
JELLY ROLL’S WIFE SLAMS TROLLS WHO CRITICIZED HER FOR TRASHING COUNTRY MUSIC SCENE
She became a stepmom to the country singer’s daughter, Bailee, and son, Noah.
Just months prior, during the 2026 Grammys — which took place in February — Jelly Roll, 41, and Bunnie Xo, 46, showed PDA.
The couple were affectionate while walking the red carpet together as well as while inside the venue.
JELLY ROLL ADMITS ‘DUMB REDNECK’ STATUS WHEN PUSHED ON POLITICS AFTER BRINGING GOD TO GRAMMYS STAGE
Jelly Roll also gave her a shoutout on stage after he won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Country Album.
Bunnie has previously opened up about their up-and-down relationship, in her memoir “Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic.”
The “Dumb Blonde” podcast host laid bare her chaotic upbringing and the emotional highs and lows that defined the early years of her relationship with the singer-songwriter.
JELLY ROLL’S WIFE BLASTS TROLLS WHO QUESTION HER FAITH AFTER RECEIVING BACKLASH FOR SKIMPY HALLOWEEN COSTUME
Long before they became one of country music’s closely watched couples, the pair weathered difficult truths — including the night Bunnie learned Jelly Roll’s ex-fling was waiting for him “in a hotel room down the street.”
“When I found out about it, I was devastated,” she told Fox News Digital in February. “I was hurt because I didn’t think he would be the one person to do that. I thought he was different. And at that moment, my heart was broken. But instead of getting mad at him, I asked myself, ‘Why do I keep attracting these kinds of men?’”
Bunnie admitted she hadn’t envisioned a conventional marriage.
JELLY ROLL’S EX-FLING WAITED IN ‘HOTEL DOWN THE STREET’ DURING MARRIAGE CRISIS, BUNNIE XO SAYS
“I think a lot of people need to realize that coming into this marriage, we weren’t a traditional bride and groom,” she explained.
“I was a working girl, and he was an ex-drug dealer — a gangster-turned-struggling artist. There’s a different set of rules on the street than there are in what I’d call traditional marriages. If you’ve never lived that lifestyle, you’re not going to understand. But of course, cheating is wrong across the board — it doesn’t matter.”
In the memoir, Bunnie also recalled learning about the alleged ex-fling.
“Are you f—ing kidding me?” she wrote. “We had an agreement…. Folks started DM’ing me on social media, telling me that J was with his ex-fling. The pieces started to fit together, and it became easier to disconnect from him…. I went completely silent and didn’t reach out to J or answer any calls.”
Shortly after, Bunnie wrote, Jelly Roll released his 2018 album, “Waylon & Willie II.”
“Have you ever listened to those songs?” she wrote. “Go give it a listen, and you’ll clearly hear a man smack-dab in the middle of an affair, pouring his guilt into lyrics…. To this day, I still hate most of the songs on that album, and I can’t listen to it all the way through.”
Looking back, Bunnie told Fox News Digital there were many reasons her initial “fairy tale” had become a nightmare.
“It’s not so much what was going on in our marriage,” she said. “It was more of my husband had a hard time letting go of the past. I had a hard time letting go of the past. We also didn’t really think the relationship was going to work.
“I think a lot of it boiled down to self-worth on both parts. My husband didn’t think he’d ever meet a woman who really loved him for him and just wanted to see him succeed without some of them wanting to change him…. And I had brought so much baggage into the relationship.”
“I had come out of a really abusive relationship,” she reflected. “The first man I ever saw cheat was my father. So I just didn’t really believe in traditional marriage at the same time either. There were just so many factors of why things happened the way they did.”
Still, Bunnie said she was “ready for a change.” So was Jelly Roll.
The two sought couples’ therapy to save their marriage. A “screaming match” broke out instead.
RACHAEL RAY SAYS MARITAL BLISS COMES FROM ‘SCREAMING MATCHES,’ NO-APOLOGY RULE WITH HUSBAND
“If I could just paint the scene for you, it’s a husband-and-wife marriage counseling couple,” Bunnie told Fox News Digital.
“We’re like, ‘OK, we’re going to come in here, we’re going to learn so much, we’re going to get the tools to have a real relationship.’ We were never taught on either side of our families how to love properly. And we’re like, ‘We’re going to go in here and do this.’ That’s why we got a guy and a girl, because nobody’s going to be able to side with the other person. It’s going to be an equal opportunity employment moment.”
“We went in there, and this poor couple had no idea what they had stepped into,” she continued. “It was stepping on a grenade. We were just screaming at each other. There was just so much anger, so much hurt, so much pain from both ends. We left that therapy session that day, and I was like, ‘This is it. We’re never going to be together again.’ And I think he felt the same way too.”
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“We ended up coming back together,” said Bunnie. “We were like, ‘I want to grow. I don’t want to be this person. I choose you. I’m going to become everything that you’ve ever wanted me to be.’”
“I’m going to be a wife, and he’s going to become everything I ever wanted him to be; a husband and a father to the kids,” she shared. “We just made that decision from then on to just be better humans and to break every generational curse that we had ever inherited. I was ready for a change. So was he. So we set out together to heal and grow together.”
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“We learned that marriage is not one-size-fits-all,” Bunnie reflected. “Each person and each relationship is completely different than the next person’s. But you do have to wake up and choose that person even on days that you don’t like them.”
In 2023, the couple renewed their vows at the same Las Vegas chapel where they were married. Bunnie said she and her husband make the choice every day to stay dedicated to each other. At the time, she described their devotion to each other as strong.
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“I’ve seen 10 different versions of my husband in 10 years, and he’s seen probably four different versions of me,” said Bunnie. “I’ve improved on things that I have wanted to improve personally, but I also think we just love each other for who we are — the good, the bad, the ugly.”
“We don’t judge each other,” she said. “There’s no judgment in this house. I know everything about my husband, and he knows everything about me. No matter how hard it gets, we face things head-on. We call it ‘getting into the foxhole.’ When it’s time, we hunker down and get through life — together.”

Summary: Researchers unmasked a critical behavioral paradox in modern weight management, proving that adults utilizing glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists experience a significant, measurable decline in daily physical activity.
Utilizing un-coerced wearable sensor tracking data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) All of Us Research Program, the team analyzed Fitbit activity records alongside electronic health records of adults managing obesity.
The findings revealed that instead of naturally moving more as they shed weight, patients experienced a sharp drop in both daily step counts and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) minutes, creating a severe physiological risk given that exercise is mandatory to protect critical lean muscle tissue during rapid weight loss.
Key Facts
Dismantling the Activity Assumption: Clinical medicine has long assumed that significant weight loss naturally triggers an automatic, spontaneous increase in a patient’s physical activity. This large-scale tracking trial formally disproves that assumption, revealing that metabolic weight loss actually correlates with reduced daily movement.
The Threat to Lean Muscle Mass: GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide, liraglutide, dulaglutide, and tirzepatide do not selectively target fat tissue alone; they also reduce vital lean muscle mass. This reality makes targeted, consistent resistance training and physical activity mandatory to preserve strength and protect long-term metabolic healthspan.
Leveraging Real-World Fitness Trackers: This project represents the first major medical study to analyze continuous, real-world data from wearable fitness trackers among a large cohort of adults taking GLP-1 receptor agonists, shifting away from notoriously unreliable patient-completed exercise journals.
Quantifying the Exercise Deficit: The data revealed a substantial drop in physical output across the board. On average, participants saw their daily step counts drop from 5,047 down to 4,487 steps per day, while their high-value moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) fell from 28 down to just 22 minutes per day.
Identifying High-Risk Drop Off Zones: While variables like chronological age, chronic heart failure, or a history of stroke did not alter the downward exercise trend, the sharpest physical activity declines were isolated in male participants and in individuals battling pre-existing joint or muscle pain.
Robust Multi-Center Cohort Metrics: The retrospective pre-post study design filtered data from 1,950 adults within the NIH database who initiated GLP-1 therapy. The team isolated 753 individuals who possessed comprehensive, long-term wearable device data for high-fidelity analysis, yielding a cohort that was 78.6% female with a mean age of 52.7 years.
A Mandate for Targeted Clinical Interventions: Dr. Maharjan emphasizes that these findings demand a major evolution in how anti-obesity drugs are prescribed. Because exercise cannot be treated as an optional lifestyle recommendation, future weight loss protocols must pair the medication with structured behavioral interventions to enforce muscle-preserving movement.
Source: Endocrine Society
Adults with obesity losing weight with glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist medications significantly decreased their physical activity, which is essential to protect muscle, according to a study being presented Saturday at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago, Ill.
GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide, liraglutide, dulaglutide and tirzepatide reduce not only fat but also lean muscle mass. This makes physical activity essential for preserving strength and long-term health, according to study lead Sajana Maharjan, M.D., of HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Ill.
The retrospective pre–post cohort study used data from the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program, which links participants’ electronic health records with their Fitbit activity data. Among the 1,950 adults with obesity who started a GLP-1 medication, researchers studied 753 people who had enough wearable-device data for analysis. The cohort was predominantly female (78.6%) with a mean age of 52.7 years.
Researchers compared each person’s physical activity before and after starting treatment, focusing on daily step counts and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) minutes.
On average, daily steps decreased from 5,047 to 4,487 steps per day, and MVPA minutes fell from 28 to 22 per day after beginning a GLP-1 receptor agonist medication. The largest declines were seen in men and in people with joint or muscle pain, while factors such as age, heart failure or prior stroke did not change the results. The study found no evidence that weight loss from these medications led to increased physical activity.
“While many assume that weight loss leads naturally to increased physical activity, our study suggests otherwise. The findings in our study reinforce that exercise cannot be optional for people taking these medications. People need targeted interventions that encourage physical activity alongside medication for obesity,” Maharjan said.
This is the first large study analyzing data from wearable fitness trackers among adults taking GLP-1 receptor agonists.
Key Questions Answered:
Editorial Notes:
This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
Journal paper reviewed in full.
Additional context added by our staff.
About this exercise and GLP-1 research news
Author: Jenni Gingery
Source: Endocrine Society
Contact: Jenni Gingery – Endocrine Society
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News