Country music star Carly Pearce has been open with fans.
She has discussed her health, and she has also discussed her love life. And for folks wondering about how the latter has gone, it hasn’t always been pretty. Pearce told that story — opening up about her divorce from Michael Ray — during an appearance on Bunnie Xo’s “Dumb Blonde” podcast in 2025.
The two actually split back in 2020, and Pearce has talked about it before, but she opened up in a big way with Bunnie.
“I thought he was so cute,” Pearce said remembering when the two first met back in 2018. “I’d heard he’s the nicest guy in the world. I invited him to my (Billboard Country Airplay) No. 1 party for ‘Every Little Thing.’ Looking back on it, it was a hot and heavy lust. It wasn’t love. It was just passionate.
“I got married to go the distance,” she added. “When I married him it was for the right reasons. I think when you travel like this, I thought I was doing the right thing to get married till I was 29. But we didn’t have real conversations, and we didn’t really know about each other. We were kind of living this life that wasn’t really reality. I think we didn’t really know each other. I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have. I think the best thing that ever happened to me was COVID, because it allowed me to deal with that in private. I think that I probably would have stayed in it longer if I could have avoided it and not had to. I was embarrassed when it happened … and was heartbroken.”
Billboard noted that Pearce filed for divorce less than a year after the two were married.
“It wasn’t what I signed up for,” she said. “It just wasn’t the marriage that I know I deserved. I knew that very quickly. We were only married for eight months. Plenty happened to where it was very clear to me this was not, this just wasn’t a marriage.”
She did tell Bunnie Xo that despite the heartbreak she was thankful for “the lessons learned from the marriage.”
“Thank you, because you taught me how strong I am,” she said. “You put me through things that have made me better now. And I don’t wish him evil. I don’t wish anything on him. I’m so glad that I’m not in that anymore.”