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Carly Pearce is not shy about sharing the most intimate details of her life, and recently, she chose to address one of the most tumultuous times in her private life – her brief marriage to fellow country singer Michael Ray. In a new interview with Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast, the Grammy winner opened up about the “shitty time” in her life, admitting she knew from the moment she exchanged vows that she “shouldn’t have” gotten married.

“I was so involved with just my lustful feelings for him. We were just madly, madly in lust. We were friends before we ever dated. So when we did date, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to marry this guy. He’s so cute. He’s the nicest guy in the world,” Pearce said, before adding that the romance was “hot and heavy” but not a real love. The two married in 2019 and filed for divorce only eight months later.

Carly Pearce Gave Michael Ray a Ride to the Top of the Billboard Charts

Pearce married her musical soulmate in 2019, the same year her Every Little Thing went to No. 1. “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,” she shared in her latest interview. “We were madly in love with each other, but not really. Not real love.”

Still, the Kentucky native, famous for hits such as Should’ve Known Better, admitted that at the time she thought she was making the right decision. “I was young and in love, and I was on a cloud. I thought this was the right choice for me,” she explained, before emphatically adding: “When I got married to him, I did it to go the distance.”

“I got married to go the distance. When I married him, it was for the right reasons,” she further added, but in hindsight, Pearce admitted that neither she nor her ex-husband was prepared to make it work, and both failed to build a solid foundation for a long-lasting relationship. “I just knew I wasn’t ready. We both weren’t ready,” she shared. “We didn’t have real conversations and didn’t really know each other, and we were living a life that wasn’t really real.”

Pearce said she had known from the moment they exchanged vows that they shouldn’t have gotten married. “I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have. The day of, when I got ready, I was like, ‘Ugh, what are you doing?’” she continued. “The part that was the silver lining of the marriage was COVID. I think the best thing that ever happened to me was COVID because it allowed me to deal with that in private.”

Pearce Gave Birth to a Baby Girl in 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic, while hard, was a blessing in disguise because without it and the isolation that came with the lockdown, Pearce wouldn’t have been able to sort through the many emotions that the demise of her relationship brought.

“I would have stayed in it longer if I could have avoided it and not had to. It was embarrassing when it happened, and I had shame around that and was heartbroken,” she added, when speaking about the period following the divorce. “When it comes to my personal life, I only feel comfortable talking about it once I’m at a point where I’m like, I don’t have to hold on to anything else.”

Pearce filed for divorce in 2020, only eight months after the wedding, but for the most part, she’s remained tight-lipped about the exact reasons the two decided to part ways. The most important detail, though, is that the relationship was never what Pearce wanted it to be. “It wasn’t what I signed up for. It just wasn’t the marriage that I knew I deserved. I knew that very quickly,” she confessed.

Pearce Divorced from Michael Ray in 2020

Pearce was also asked to weigh in on speculations that her ex-husband cheated on her during the relationship, which the two singers briefly discussed. While the Kentucky native said she didn’t want to talk about the topic, she did state that while “healing from a divorce,” she had a lot of opinions from people who decided to share their thoughts on the matter, which “was really hard for [her] in the beginning.”

“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,” Pearce explained, before adding, “But, at the end of the day, my friends who walked that with me, they know. My parents know, and God knows, and that is enough. It’s enough.”

The silver lining to all the heartache, for Pearce, was a new level of self-awareness and understanding that she did indeed have self-worth. “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. You taught me how strong I am,” she said. “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.”