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Country singer Carly Pearce has candidly revealed that she knew shortly after her wedding that marrying fellow country singer Michael Ray was a mistake. During her appearance on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, the Grammy winner shared that her whirlwind romance with the What The Truck singer was more hot and heavy lust than love, and the divorce of the couple just eight months after they got married was in the works.

Pearce is perhaps best known for her hits Every Little Thing, I Hope, and Should’ve Known Better and has also released several albums in her career so far. However, after their romance that started online before being married in 2019, she felt she had made the right choice and entered into marriage “for the right reasons” and to “go the distance.”

“I thought he was so cute. I’d heard he’s the nicest guy in the world,” Pearce, the Kentucky-born singer, said during her conversation on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast while recounting their story. She shared how she got to know the singer, “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 further revealed during the interview how she still did not take the marriage into it “lightly” as she “got married to go the distance. When I married him, it was for the right reasons,” the singer stated. “We just never had real conversations, and we didn’t really know about each other,” Pearce continued. “We were kind of living this life that wasn’t really reality.”

Pearce Admitted on Her Wedding Day, She Knew Things Wouldn’t Work Out

Continuing with her interview, Pearce explained that she had her doubts from the very beginning. “I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have,” the singer shared. She opened up on how her romantic relationship with Michael Ray went south so quickly, “It wasn’t what I signed up for. It just wasn’t the marriage that I knew I deserved. I knew that very quickly. Plenty happened to where it was very clear to me this was not, this just wasn’t a marriage.”

Pearce, who filed for divorce from Ray in 2020, only eight months after their marriage, further shared that the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be a blessing in disguise in a way because it allowed her to process everything that happened in privacy. “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.”

Pearce On Divorce, Rumors of Infidelity, Self-Worth

Pearce, who revealed that she filed for divorce only eight months after the couple got married in 2019, has not shared details on what went wrong in their marriage. However, during her appearance on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, she admitted that it wasn’t long before they got married that it became clear that it was not a match made in heaven. “It wasn’t what I signed up for. It just wasn’t the marriage that I knew I deserved. I knew that very quickly. Plenty happened to where it was very clear to me this was not, this just wasn’t a marriage.”

During her conversation on the podcast, Bunnie XO and Pearce briefly touched on rumors that Ray cheated on Pearce when they were together. While the singer did not confirm the rumors, she addressed the situation of defending herself to the public, “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.”

Pearce, who feels the incident changed her for the better, says she is in the “happiest season of my life. If I ever saw him, if he ever watches this, thank you, because you taught me more about myself,” Pearce added. “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.”

While she credits the divorce as part of her journey to self-worth, she still struggles with “blurred lines” in the relationship and had no idea she “had so much worth.” “I think I was really shown just how much I care about myself. I actually really have a lot of self-worth, and that showed me that,” she concluded.