He’s an award-winning rapper, singer, and songwriter but ,when the workday is done, Jelly Roll zeroes in on his role as a loving husband to Bunnie XO, his wife of many years.
Jelly Roll — born Jason Bradley DeFord — is a rising stars in country music after skyrocketing to fame with his singles “Son of a Sinner,” “Need a Favor,” and “Save Me.”
After dazzling the crowd as a guest performer on Season 25 of The Voice.
Jelly Roll will join the dynamite lineup of country titans honoring Toby Keith for NBC’s two-hour memorial special Toby Keith: American Icon.
When he’s stepping out for a special occasion or big show, you can often catch his life partner.
And longtime cheerleader Bunnie XO cheesing alongside the CMA winner on the red carpet.
So, who is the lucky lady Jelly Roll loves with all his heart?
Jelly Roll is married to Bunnie XO (real name Alyssa DeFord), a beloved model, podcast host, and social media personality with 6 million followers on TikTok and over 800K subscribers on YouTube as the self-described “Trailerpark Barbara Walters.”
Bunnie XO launched her podcast Dumb Blonde in 2019 and has since garnered over 10 million listeners as she chats with her guests from everywhere about everything and anything. Celebrating seven seasons of weekly episodes, Bunnie XO thrives while touching base with everyone from musicians to clairvoyants. Her diverse guest lineup has included Mod Son, JWoww, Priscilla Block, Gypsy Rose Blanchard, and Brantley Gilbert, just to scratch the iceberg.
According to her IMDb bio, Bunnie XO has modeled for several magazines and appeared on Playboy TV. She has also appeared in several of Jelly Roll’s music videos, such as “Beautiful Disaster” and “All My Life,” her husband’s track with Falling in Reverse.
Bunnie XO and Jelly Roll also headline her YouTube series Meet the DeFords, a family vlog where the couple shares exciting updates from their lives in the entertainment industry.
Jelly Roll met Bunnie XO in 2015 while she was attending one of his concerts in Las Vegas at the Country Saloon.
He spoke about the fateful performance during a December 2020 appearance on The Golden Hour podcast, revealing that he met Bunnie XO backstage at the show. However, she was in a relationship at the time, so the pair were initially just friends. But when Bunnie XO became single later on, she reached out to mutual friends so that she could reconnect — this time romantically — with Jelly Roll.
“I’m not going to act like I shot my shot. [Bunnie] kind of shot hers,” Jelly Roll told the comedy podcast’s hosts. Jelly Roll continued by explaining that he was living in a van at the time, and it was Bunnie XO who helped him get back on his feet financially and supported him through his burgeoning music career.
Jelly Roll proposed to Bunnie XO in August 2016 onstage at a Yelawolf and Deftones concert in Las Vegas.
“We got married kind of randomly,” Jelly Roll told The Golden Hour hosts. Following their Las Vegas proposal, the lovebirds checked their clocks and realized they had just enough time to catch a quick courtroom Vegas wedding before midnight.
They’ve been married ever since.
In August 2023, seven years after their elopement, Jelly Roll and Bunnie XO returned to the same Las Vegas chapel where they first tied the knot to renew their vows. Bunnie XO took to Instagram to share a video of the ceremony, where the couple looked happier than ever. “Luckiest girl alive,” she captioned the post. “Tonite was such a dream.”
Now happily married for nearly a decade, the country singer encourages others to stick to the classics when it comes to marital bliss: Communication.
“Somebody asked me what’s the secret to our marriage the other day. I didn’t even have to think about — it’s simple — we are comfortable having uncomfortable conversations,” Jelly Roll shared on Instagram in June 2020. “We have learn to laugh at the small sh*t, and above everything, we don’t take anything too seriously. This woman is my backbone in life, she’s beautiful, smart, witty, and you wouldn’t believe how silly she really is.”
Bunnie XO is the stepmother of Jelly Roll’s daughter, Bailee Ann, from a previous relationship. The teen was born on May 22, 2008. Jelly Roll also has a son named Noah, born in August 2016, to a woman with whom the singer had previously been involved.
In a June 2023 episode of the podcast Bussin’ With The Boys, Jelly Roll revealed that Bunnie XO helped him get custody of Bailee, which he accomplished in 2017. The couple hadn’t been together for more than a year, but she didn’t hesitate to lend a hand when Jelly Roll needed it most, helping him find a condo and build a home fit for a family after he’d previously toured the country living in his car.
“I’ll never forget, Bunnie looked at me, and — man, it makes me emotional — she said ‘No matter what happens with us, I’m going to help you get the girl.’ And I was like, man, what character, you know what I mean?”
“It takes a special kind of woman to raise a kid that isn’t her child and still treat the child as if she was. Bunnie is that special woman outside of the social media, outside of the podcast, and all the business endeavors she does and helps me with; Bunnie is a beautiful soul,” Jelly Roll shared in a May 2020 Facebook post. “She is kind, patient, and caring. Over the years watching her relationship with Bailee blossom into this beautiful mother daughter bond that it has become has been nothing short of magical.”
Jelly Roll continued, “I have truly been blessed with the best partner I could’ve asked for in life. You are the epitome of a good mom and deserve more credit than anyone because you didn’t have to step up to the plate the way you did. You chose to step up, and man, you have knocked it out of the park.”
In a June 2024 appearance on Bussin’ with the Boys, Jelly Roll revealed that the couple had started exploring IVF options in hopes of welcoming another little one to the family. A month following that announcement, Bunnie XO shared a clip from the podcast on Instagram with some additional context behind the couple’s decision to update fans.
“We had planned on doing this privately, but decided our IVF journey needed to be shared because we’ve always been so open,” Bunnie XO explained in a July 2024 episode of her Dumb Blonde podcast. “And with all odds stacked against us, it’s always been hard and we have only just begun.”
“We were going to keep it from the Internet because of how the Internet is; they love to ruin beautiful things,” she explained. “I thought about it, and I was like, ‘My husband is f*cking excited to have a kid with me. How cool is that? If he wants to f*cking scream it from the mountain tops, f*cking let him. It doesn’t matter how I feel about what other people think.”
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Source: USA Today
