Carly Pearce admits that even now, she still doesn’t understand why Michael Ray wanted to marry her, and their marriage quickly fell apart after only eight months.

At least she got an incredible country album out of it with 29: Written In Stone…

Carly Pearce has spoken publicly before about her very short marriage to fellow country artist Michael Ray, and she previously told Bunnie XO that she was the one who “slid into” Michael’s DM’s because she thought he was cute and had heard a lot of good things about him from mutual connections.

This was very early in her career, around the time her 2017 song “Every Little Thing” went #1 and became her first commercial success, and Carly admitted that Ray’s career was very much on the up and up, and she was finally just starting to get a little bit of traction.

Carly says she thinks they were both somewhat blinded by the excitement and attention, though she was very clear that she went into it with pure intentions and was getting married “for the right reasons.” She admitted very honestly that she knew the night they got married she “shouldn’t have,” and Carly and Michael were ultimately only married for about eight months in total, from October 2019 until she filed for divorce in June of 2020

And during a recent conversation with David Begnaud on the The Person Who Believed In Me podcast, Carly explained that she knew on the day she got married that she “made a very big mistake,” as did everyone else around her:

“You know when you just know something’s not how it should be? I think everybody in my life knew I had made a… he made it very clear that I made a very big mistake.”

She says that Ray had a bit of a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality, but she didn’t see it until it was too late. But, she says she learned a lot about herself, and she learned how strong she really was because she was willing to “blow her life up” when she realized very quickly it wasn’t what she deserved. She admits that she still wonders why Ray wanted to marry her to begin with because she feels that it wasn’t “for real”:

“There’s a bit of Jekyll and Hyde… that I did not see until it was too late. 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.’

I think it taught me just how strong I am. I knew very quickly this was not what I deserved, and I blew up my life to get out of it. I didn’t stay because society tells you you should. I was done, and I think the one thing that has always carried with me is, why? Why did he marry me? That’s the one thing that I’ve always wondered, is just, why do it if it wasn’t for real.”

Of course, there are two sides to every story, and Ray has really never said much publicly about his side of what went down, and as we all know, life and love can be incredibly complicated and we’ll never know the full details of everything that transpired.

But Carly says it was “apparent” that their relationship was not what she wanted for her life:

“Yes. And it was very apparent for me that this was just not wanted for my life.”

I can’t imagine going through such a whirlwind romance, and ultimately a break-up, so publicly. It had to be difficult for all parties, but Carly has since moved on and been in several relationships since her marriage ended, as has Michael Ray, and she is in a new relationship now.

She has also put out several singles over the last several months, with the most recent ones being “You Can Have Him,” “Church Girl” and of course, her duet with Riley Green, “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay.” Carly hasn’t officially announced the album yet, but she’s off to a super solid start with all of these singles, and I can’t wait to hear what else she has in the works hopefully sooner rather than later.