Carly Pearce is opening up about the moment she knew her marriage was over, pretty quickly after saying, “I do.”
In a new interview on “The Person Who Believed In Me” podcast, the 36-year-old country singer shared that she knew on her wedding night that getting married was the wrong choice, saying “he made it very clear that I made a very big mistake.”
“There’s a bit of Jekyll and Hyde…that I did not see until it was too late,” she explained. “And that’s something I’m grateful for my very short marriage, because it taught me a lot about myself. It also gave me the album ’29.’”
When pressed further, Pearce said that the marriage and divorce “taught me just how strong I am” in that she very quickly realized, “this was not what I deserved,” and did something about it.
“I blew up my life to get out of it,” she said. “I didn’t stay because society tells you ‘you should.’ I didn’t stay because my faith says divorce is bad. I didn’t stay because ‘oh, it’s public. I need to do that.’ I was done.”
The “Dear Miss Loretta” singer was married to country singer Michael Ray from October 2019 until June 2020.
The relationship and divorce ended up being the inspiration behind her third album, “29,” which featured songs such as “What He Didn’t Do” and “Next Girl.”
Pearce explained that while she doesn’t see herself as a “good communicator,” she finds she can better express herself through writing songs, saying, “I need to write it out to process it.” This led her to write “six really intense songs” about divorce, which she thought would be too much for the album.
“I thought it was just my story, but I think what I’ve learned is it was a lot of different people’s story,” she said.
She ended up winning a Grammy Award for best country duo/group performance for the song, “Never Wanted to be That Girl,” from the album, which features Ashley McBryde.
In 2025, Pearce confirmed she was in a relationship with entrepreneur, Jordan Karcher, with a cozy selfie on Instagram.
While on the “Dumb Blonde” podcast in August 2025, Pearce spoke about her new relationship, saying she’s “happier than ever” and revealed that she met him on the dating app Raya.
“I just didn’t think you could meet a real person on Raya,” she said. “I just felt like how am I going to be able to, like, meet somebody that’s aligned with me? He’s not in any kind of entertainment, which is the best thing ever. I’m just really happy.”
Pearce recently urged her followers to go get checked by doctors when health issues arise after experiencing a medical nightmare when her pericarditis was initially misdiagnosed.
She recalled feeling dismissed by doctors and encouraged her followers to be persistent when it comes to their health.
“‘Oh, you have anxiety. Oh, you have a busy schedule,’” Pearce recalled being told. “And it’s like, ‘No, something’s not right.’ And, so, in 2024, I went public with that just because it took me out for a second. But I’m doing really well. And I haven’t had any kind of major flair. But I think, again, just trying to be honest with people and use my platform to be like, ‘Please go get checked because there was something wrong.’”
