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Country singer Carly Pearce has recently come out and revealed that she knew from day one that she shouldn’t have married fellow country singer Michael Ray. The “It Won’t Always Be Like This” singer says that as soon as she knew she was getting married, she started second-guessing her decision. “I knew the night I got married that I shouldn’t have,” Pearce admitted in an interview with Bunnie XO for Bunnie XO’s Dumb Blonde podcast. “It was a very hot and heavy lust, which is not a good place to be, especially when you commit.”

Pearce, who got married in June 2019, said her relationship with Michael Ray was based more on lust than love. After an 8-month marriage, the two singers called it quits, and Pearce had to come to terms with the fact that the relationship she was so excited to get into was not all it seemed. She said, “I got married to go the distance. When I married him, it was for the right reasons.”

Carly Pearce Recalls Her Husband Michael Ray

The Kentucky native, who grew up in Wartrace, first met Ray through a friend. When he asked her on a date, she happily accepted and agreed to have dinner with him. Little did she know, she had fallen for the country singer by the time they got to the dessert. “I thought he was so cute,” she began, “I’d 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.”

Carly Pearce and Michael Ray were dating for a few months before the couple got married in June 2019. She continued, “We were engaged for five months. Looking back on it now, 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.”

Pearce said she was “excited and hopeful” when she first got married, but also “cried myself to sleep” on more than one occasion. She quickly realized that their relationship was built on a superficial level. “It wasn’t what I signed up for. 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 said.

Pearce and Ray announced their divorce in October 2020 after eight months of marriage. During the interview, Bunnie XO and Pearce briefly touched on rumors that Michael Ray cheated on Carly during the relationship. The Kentucky native refused to speak on the rumors but said it was not a good feeling to have people talk about your private life. “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.’ But, at the end of the day, my friends who walked that with me, now. My parents know, and God knows, and that is enough. It’s enough.”

Pearce Speaks On Self-Worth and Where She Stands Now

Pearce is currently married to her “second” husband, Mi, Michael Majeres, and has also filed a lawsuit against Michael Ray’s ex-fiancée over the use of their song, “Building a Broken Heart.” As for her personal life and career, Carly is on top of the world. “I am in the happiest season of my life,” she said. “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. 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.”

In her conversation with Bunnie XO, Pearce also opened up about things she learned from her failed marriage to Michael Ray. “I think I was really shown just how much I care about myself. I actually really have a lot of self-worth, and that showed me that,” she said.

“We all go through life, and then something like that happens and teaches us a lot about ourselves,” she further said. Pearce is in a different place in life than when she got married to Michael Ray, and if anything, she has accepted the whole situation and is grateful for the experience. “I think the best thing that ever happened to me was COVID 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,” she concluded.