Carly Pearce admitted she knew immediately that she shouldn’t have married ex-husband Michael Ray.
The country crooner explained the relationship with fellow musician Ray was more about lust than love during an appearance on Bunnie XO’s podcast, “Dumb Blonde.” Despite marrying Ray for the right reasons, Pearce claimed the two weren’t living in reality.
“I thought he was so cute,” she told Jelly Roll’s wife while recalling her short-lived marriage. “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.”
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“I got married to go the distance. When I married him, it was for the right reasons,” Pearce insisted.
“I think that when you travel like this, I thought I was doing the right thing by waiting 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, now looking back on it. So, I just think we didn’t really know each other.
“I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have,” she admitted. “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 I had shame around that and was heartbroken.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Ray’s representatives for comment.
Pearce filed for divorce in 2020 after eight months of marriage to the country singer.
“It wasn’t what I signed up for,” she explained. “It just wasn’t the marriage that I know I deserved. I knew that very quickly.
“And I think in the first — 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.”
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Pearce and Bunnie XO briefly touched on the speculation Ray had cheated on the singer during their marriage.
“People have all their opinions, and, at first, that was so hard for me because I was like, ‘That’s not true, that’s not true, that’s not true. What he’s saying isn’t true.’ But, at the end of the day, like my friends who walked that with me, they know,” she said. “My parents know and God knows, and that is enough. It’s enough.”
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After the hardships Pearce faced during that year of her life, she found happiness after the divorce.
“I am in the happiest season of my life,” the “Should’ve Known Better” singer told Bunnie XO. “I’m — actually if I ever saw him, if he ever watches this, thank you, because you taught me more about myself. You taught me how strong I am. 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.
“I think I was really shown just how much I care about me,” Pearce added. “You know, like, I actually really have a lot of self-worth and that showed me that.”
