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Carly Pearce has said in previous interviews that her 2020 divorce from country singer Michael Ray was a hard pill to swallow. In a recent interview, she revealed that she knew even before walking down the aisle that things would not work out between them.

The two were engaged in 2018 and married the following year. However, in an interview on Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, Pearce revealed that during the marriage, “It was hot and heavy lust. It wasn’t love. It was just passionate.” Although the feelings were intense, they soon fizzled, leading the Grammy winner to file for divorce less than a year later.

Pearce’s Realization After Getting Engaged

Pearce and Ray are both country singers, having met around the same time their hit songs, Every Little Thing and Should’ve Known Better, were topping the charts. The Kentucky native has since opened up about how she “got lost in lust” with Ray. “It’s so funny to look back at it now. It was a whirlwind romance, and when we got engaged, I thought I was doing the right thing,” she said. “I thought he was so cute, and I’d heard he’s the nicest guy in the world. I invited him to my No. 1 party for Every Little Thing.”

Pearce got married in 2019, soon after getting engaged. “Looking back on it, it was a hot and heavy lust. It wasn’t love. It was just passionate,” she continued on Bunnie XO’s podcast. She added that despite the circumstances, she was never “half in it” and had married Ray “to go the distance.” “When I married him, it was for the right reasons. But I definitely didn’t have those conversations with him that we should have,” she said.

Pearce then asked Bunnie if she even had those important conversations with her now-husband. Bunnie then told Pearce that they did not. Pearce said that the short-lived relationship was not on par with her idea of marriage. “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. “If we were being real with each other, if we had had those important conversations like where do you see your career in 10 years? And you know, ‘I just want you. I just wanna be with you now.’ It just wasn’t what I wanted at that time.”

Carly Pearce’s Divorce: ‘I Knew the Night I Got Married’

Pearce then went on to reveal that the day of the wedding was her sign that she should not be getting married to Ray. “I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have. I knew that that night,” she said. However, as terrible as the situation was, Pearce said that the pandemic period was actually “the best thing that ever happened” to her. She revealed that because of the COVID restrictions, she was able to “deal with that in private” and that she “probably would have stayed in it longer if I could have avoided it and not had to.”

Pearce said that when she first got divorced, she was “embarrassed” and felt “ashamed and heartbroken.” “That’s why I hated when people made it into something that it wasn’t. I was embarrassed that it happened. And so, it took a while for me to process,” she said. The singer filed for divorce in 2020, barely eight months after getting married.

Divorce, Rumors, and Personal Growth

During her interview on Bunnie XO’s podcast, Pearce said that in the relationship with Ray, “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,” she added.

Pearce and Bunnie discussed rumors of Ray cheating during their relationship. Pearce didn’t go into much detail about that. However, she did say that “having people have all their opinions” about her divorce was hard for her. “It was a while before I was like, ‘They don’t know; they don’t know,’” Pearce said. “‘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 says she’s moved past the failed relationship, and her life has never been better. “I am 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,” she said of Ray. “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.”

Pearce added that the experience forced her to really look in the mirror. “I think I was really shown just how much I care about myself,” she said. “I actually really have a lot of self-worth, and that showed me that.”