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Country singer Carly Pearce recently appeared on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast and revealed one of the most heartbreaking experiences of her life: her failed marriage to country singer Michael Ray. While Pearce and Ray seemed like a match made in heaven, both have now admitted that the two of them made the right call getting divorced as soon as they did.

The Grammy-winning artist appeared on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast and tearfully confessed that she felt like she knew she had made the wrong decision the night she got married to Michael Ray.

Pearce and Ray got married in 2019 and divorced in 2020 after only eight months of marriage. While there is no official word from Pearce or Ray on why they got divorced, Pearce did recently offer a little more detail on why their relationship was never really meant to be.

The Kentucky-born star was initially attracted to Ray because of how hot they thought they were. While Pearce did briefly date Ray when they first started a relationship, Pearce said that the relationship never really was a love connection but instead a lustful one.

Pearce started by describing how she first met Michael Ray and realized that they were interested in each other. “I thought he was so cute,” Pearce began. “I’d heard he’s the nicest guy in the world. I invited him to my 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.”

Pearce then said that she realized after getting married that this was not the kind of marriage she wanted. “I got married to go the distance. When I married him, it was for the right reasons,” she told Bunnie.

“I think one of the things I was kind of naive on in our relationship was 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, you know?” Pearce said on the podcast before revealing that she even knew that day that it was the wrong decision for her to get married.

Pearce told Bunnie, “I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have,” Pearce admitted on the podcast. “I think the best thing that ever happened to me was COVID because it allowed me to deal with that in private. 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.”

Carly Pearce and Michael Ray: Rumors, Marriage, and Divorce

Carly Pearce and Michael Ray got married in the summer of 2019 and filed for divorce eight months later in 2020

Pearce is yet to give any official statement as to the cause of her divorce, but in her podcast interview, Pearce claimed that it was “not the marriage that I know I deserved.”

Pearce got divorced from Michael Ray in 2020 after only eight months of marriage

The singer was recently linked to her former manager Jim Audiosage, but Pearce recently said that she is happily single and enjoying her new found independence.

During the interview, Carly Pearce and Bunnie XO also talked a little bit about the rumors that Michael Ray cheated on her during their marriage. While Pearce did not give a straight answer, she did admit that it was difficult to be put in a position where she felt like she had to defend herself publicly.

“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, my friends who walked that with me know. My parents know, and God knows, and that is enough. It’s enough.”

In other recent news about the singer, Pearce did recently open up on the song Rest of My Life. The song came just after her divorce from Michael Ray and Pearce admitted that it was one of the most important songs of her life.

“I’ve gone through all of this s**t,” Pearce told the Cut. “I’m really glad I got divorced when I did because I was in the same relationship befor,e and I could see the red flags that I was supposed to be aware of… In the divorce, I got married for real, I felt, and then that was so traumatic. But I grew so much after that, I’m proud of where I am and proud of who I am now.”

Pearce said that writing that song was a cathartic experience that helped her let go of her fears about her self-worth. “‘Rest of My Life’ is kind of about thinking that you’re the problem,” she continued. “And, later on, you realize that you were never the problem; it’s other people around you not seeing your worth. I’m in such a great place in my life. This is the rest of my life—this is my happy life.”