What Jelly Roll's Wife Bunnie Xo Has Shared About Her IVF Journey

When Bunnie Xo and Jelly Roll's whirlwind romance started in 2015, the country star was already a father to a daughter and had a son on the way. That was never an issue. Not only does Bunnie have a great relationship with Roll's kids, but she stood at the forefront of his custody battle to get his oldest. While she has been raising Roll's daughter, Bailee Ann, as her own since the girl was 8 years old, Bunnie wants to experience raising a child from infancy. She hopes IVF and a surrogate can help her fulfill that dream.

While she and Roll, whose real name is Jason DeFord, started meeting with specialists in 2019, they didn't commit to the journey until five years later. Bunnie wasn't going to publicly address their intentions just yet, but she did on her podcast after Roll let the news slip the previous month. "My wife and I are talking about having a baby," he said on the "Bussin' with the Boys" podcast in June 2024. The "Son of a Sinner" singer revealed the plan motivated him to pay better attention to his health.

"I was like, it means I got to live to at least 60," he said. Since the cat was out of the bag, Bunnie saw no reason to keep it from her fans. "[We] decided our IVF journey needed to be shared because we've always been so open," she wrote on Instagram. They know the road ahead will be long, but it seems they're ready.

While Bunnie Xo has had baby fever for a few years, she wanted to be fully ready to take on the challenge. Bunnie and Jelly Roll's life didn't have the stability she deemed necessary in 2019. The two were still working through an affair he had between 2017 and 2018, and Bunnie was figuring out sobriety and dealing with depression. "Trying to get pregnant and do IVF in 2019, there was just way too many things," she revealed in a July 2, 2024, episode of the "Dumb Blonde" podcast.

They were also not where they wanted to be financially. While she still worked as an escort at the time, Roll had yet to have his breakthrough in music. She has now retired from the sex work industry and is making good money through her podcast and production company, and Roll is a Grammy-nominated star. "We're not even the same humans we were in 2019," she said. Bunnie, who turned 44 in January 2024, feels ready. "I feel like I've accomplished so much in my life. And the only thing that's left is to raise a baby and garden," she said.

And she and Roll even consider having more than one. "We're on the fence of having twins. We think we want to have twin boys. I'm not sure," she revealed. The couple will begin the implantation process in February 2025 and hopes to have a DeFord baby in 2026. 

When Jelly Roll was fighting to get custody of Bailee, he was living out of his van. With his singing career yet to take off, he lacked the money for a lawyer. That's when he met Bunnie Xo. Even before she made up her mind about him, she decided she would help him. She found him a place to live with an extra bedroom and hired a lawyer. "Bunnie looked at me and said — man, it makes me emotional — she said, 'No matter what happens with us, I'm gonna help you get this little girl,'" he recalled on "Bussin' with the Boys" in June 2023.

But that's not all Bunnie did. She went on to become the mother figure Bailee needed to thrive while her biological mother struggled with addiction. "You are the epitome of a good mom and deserve more credit than anyone because you didn't have to step up to the plate the way you did," Roll gushed in a 2020 Mother's Day Facebook post. He isn't the only one who thinks so. Bailee also agrees.

While their relationship was initially complicated due to the circumstances, Bunnie and Bailee have become as close as two peas in a pod. Bailee knows her life could have turned out differently hadn't it been for her stepmom. "She built my world back up when it was broken in pieces and for that I am eternally grateful," she captioned a 2022 Instagram post in honor of Bunnie's birthday.