- calendar_today August 26, 2025
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In one of the more honest and revealing interviews of her career, Carly Pearce has admitted that she knew the night she married fellow country star Michael Ray that she had made a huge mistake.
Pearce’s brief marriage to Michael Ray was in the spotlight when she revealed that they had parted ways, filing for divorce in September of last year. The country music singer got married to her longtime boyfriend in 2019 and announced her divorce just eight months later.
In a new interview with Bunnie XO on the Dumb Blonde podcast, Pearce admitted that while she did not go into the marriage expecting it to end, she always felt in the back of her mind that there was a problem.
Pearce always felt the relationship was more of a lustful affair, and she never truly felt as if she was in love with Ray. As the pair got to know one another, they dated for a little over a year before making their engagement official in the fall of 2019. The wedding ceremony was conducted in November of the same year.
The couple is said to have met when she sent Ray a note about how “cute” he was. He called her and they got to know each other better, leading to her being invited to his house to watch the football game.
Pearce went on the podcast and explained how things began, but after a few months, she began to have “a very gut-wrenching feeling” in her stomach. She knew that things were not going to work out.
Pearce has been candid in the past, particularly on her 2020 album 29, which delved into the emotions she was experiencing after the split. In the latest interview, however, she has been brutally honest about her feelings leading up to the marriage and after the fact.
Pearce explained how, despite the warning signs, she always thought that things would work out. “I thought he was so cute. I 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 explained.
Although she had doubts about the relationship leading up to the marriage, she was fully prepared to make it work with Ray.
“I got married to go the distance. When I married him, it was for the right reasons,” she said.
Pearce made it clear that she decided to get married to Ray very seriously, but acknowledged that, in hindsight, they did not build a real foundation for the relationship. “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,” she said.
Pearce went on to admit that even on her wedding day, she felt that the marriage was not going to work, but went through with it anyway.
“I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have,” she continued. “Thank God that COVID came, and you know, it’s crazy to say that because it was a horrible thing to happen, but for me, COVID was a blessing in disguise 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.”
The whole process of getting together and then breaking up with Ray was quick and hectic. They met in 2018 and got engaged in November of 2019, but divorced in May of 2020.
