(Photo by Brianna Bryson\/WireImage)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nYes, before Jelly Roll became one of country music\u2019s biggest success stories, he and Bunnie were simply trying to survive.<\/p>\n
The podcast host is now opening up about the difficult years before her estranged husband\u2019s career took off, revealing she worked as an escort to help keep them financially afloat while the aspiring musician chased his dreams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was turning tricks to pay our bills,\u201d Bunnie said on the latest episode of \u201cDumb Blonde.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI literally went on tour with him and was seeing clients just to fund our life at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite speculation that she entered the relationship with significant savings, Bunnie insisted that wasn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI had sugar daddies at the time that were paying for all of this,\u201d she explained, adding that the couple \u201cliterally had nothing\u201d when they got together in 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were two kids who literally had nothing\u2026 We were still in the streets. We were making money as it came,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Long before Jelly Roll was selling out arenas and topping the charts, Bunnie said his concerts drew only a handful of fans.<\/p>\n
She recalled attending some of his earliest performances, where crowds numbered around 20 people.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it was crazy because within the first three years of us being together, the crowd started doubling,\u201d she remembered.<\/p>\n
The singer \u2014 whose real name is Jason Bradley DeFord \u2014 would eventually become one of country music\u2019s biggest crossover stars. But according to Bunnie, those early years were defined by financial uncertainty and doing whatever they could to get by.<\/p>\n
\nThe revelations come just months after Jelly Roll, 41, filed for divorce from Bunnie in May, citing irreconcilable differences.<\/p>\n
The couple married in Las Vegas in 2016, but Bunnie said the relationship began to unravel over the past year and a half as she pursued IVF treatments in hopes of starting a family.<\/p>\n
She described the experience as \u201cone of the loneliest, darkest journeys,\u201d revealing she suffered multiple miscarriages and lost several embryos.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt completely wrecked me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wrecked me emotionally, spiritually, physically\u2026 I became a shell of the person I was because I\u2019m doing [IVF].\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Bunnie, the emotional strain created distance between the couple.<\/p>\n
During the IVF process, she said she and Jelly Roll \u201cstopped communicating.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also made a heartbreaking admission about how she viewed their relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that it\u2019s safe for me to say that I always loved my husband a little bit more than he loved me,\u201d Bunnie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like always protecting him and always making sure he was okay and like always chasing him, and I literally was the glue that held us together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her candid comments offer a deeply personal look at both the sacrifices she says she made during Jelly Roll\u2019s rise to fame and the struggles that ultimately preceded the end of their nearly decade-long marriage.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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