Kacey Musgraves is sort of a new breed of glam-pop-country, at least to me. She’s not cozying up to right-wing white supremacists, she’s a vocal LGBTQ ally, she likes sparkles and glitter and wigs and she seems like a cool person, in general, from what little I know about her. Not even three years into her marriage, things fell apart. And she waited until the Friday of a long holiday weekend to announce that she and husband Ruston Kelly are getting a divorce:
The sun has set on Kacey Musgraves and Ruston Kelly’s marriage. Two-and-a-half years after they tied the knot in Tennessee, the country singer, 31, and her singer-songwriter husband, also 31, have called it quits, their reps confirmed to PEOPLE in a joint statement, saying: “We’ve made this painful decision together.”
“With heavy but hopeful hearts we wanted to put our own thoughts into the air about what’s happening. These kinds of announcements are always met with scrutiny and speculation and we want to stop that before it even starts,” their statement said. “We believe that we were put into each other’s lives for a divine reason and have both changed each other infinitely for the better. The love we have for each other goes far beyond the relationship we’ve shared as husband and wife. It’s a soul connection that can never be erased.”
Their statement continued, “We’ve made this painful decision together — a healthy decision that comes after a very long period of trying the best we can. It simply just didn’t work. Though we are parting ways in marriage, we will remain true friends for the rest of our lives. We hold no blame, anger, or contempt for each other and we ask for privacy and positive wishes for us both as we learn how to navigate through this.”
Reps for Kelly did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment. The Associated Press was the first to report the news.
The breakup news comes after Musgraves attended the CMA Awards with Gigi Hadid as her date in November. Both the star and Kelly have also deleted their wedding photos from their Instagram accounts.
I’m always sort of tickled when celebrities announce their separations or divorces with these long-ass statements about their souls and leaving the relationship with no anger. I mean, it’s always sad when a couple splits up, but if you can get along well enough to issue a joint statement about your souls, maybe there’s hope for your marriage after all? I’m just saying! No, it’s more likely that Kacey wrote this and her estranged husband just signed off on it because he didn’t care. I also wonder if there’s any tea on this? I’m getting a vibe, but I could be wrong.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
She tours constantly; she’s also apparently a heavy pot user. Maybe having to spend so much time together during lockdown made them realize they weren’t meant to be together
What does her smoking pot have to do with anything lol
Exactly. “Heavy pot user” is not the equivalent of any other drug abuse.
The tea is that he’s supposedly an addict and likely relapsed. Could explain the flowery language, she still probably loves him.
If this is true, yeah that totally explains the flowery statement.
But also good on her for leaving. I had a friend stay way too long with an addict partner, and only left after he started leaving drug paraphernalia around their toddler. That was 6 years ago, and he is still in and out of jail, rehab, halfway houses, etc. Sees his kid about once a year.
Anyway, if that is the case, then good for her.
I was more sad to read Jennifer Grey and Clark Gregg are divorcing after almost 20 years.
Oh no! I didn’t see that one.
Coronavirus divorce is a real thing, I guess! Being cooped up together with no time apart must be tough on a lot of marriages.
NOOOOOOOOO! Not Clark and Jennifer!!!! This makes me sad and I’m in mourning.
Both of them erasing their wedding photos off of social media raises some flags.
I think the T could go a few ways.
Their relationship definitely moved fast in the beginning. As someone upthread posted, he is in recovery and was just freshly sober when they met. She had just gotten out of a years long relationship with her ex/bandmate. Within a year, they were engaged. They got married a few months after that. They clearly were still steeped in the honeymoon phase.
He seems to still struggle with addiction, which is not to demonize or blame him at all. He’d posted around the holidays that he was marking 1 year without harmful substances, so he seems to have relapsed since they’ve been together. I feel like he might have either relapsed again or he realized that her lifestyle (drinking, tripping, weed) wasn’t compatible with a sober one.
They both toured constantly last year, so quarantine is probably the most time they’ve spent together. Just probably brought out all the ways they aren’t compatible. It’s just weird because on instagram they were just on a picnic with their puppy, and he just released a music video which has a lot of footage from their wedding in it. So that’s a little surprising. I really like them both, so this made me sad, but it sounds like it’s for the best.
That’s sad, sounds like something happened to bring this about. I hope if he’s struggling again, he gets help.
It’s like the Oscar curse, but for musicians. Win a Grammy, lose a husband.
I followed Kacey on social media since “Merry Go Round” first came out, and their relationship sort of surprised me. She started off in what seemed like a pretty serious and long-term relationship with a band member, and then almost immediately he and the band were gone. She got involved with Ruston pretty quickly. Seemed to me like they fell in love and got married pretty quickly (their wedding was beautiful, by the way. So if the pictures are gone, they must be serious).
I wonder if it was just the pandemic and being quarantined together that brought up incompatibilities. I’m like you Kaiser, if you’ve been married 2.5 years, releasing a statement about how you still care so much about each other and how you worked for such a long time to make it work…either none of that is true or there’s something else going on.
They moved crazy fast.
I love Kasey. Her music was my on my main “songs in the times of Corona” playlist.
I love her and saw her show last year and she was amazing! I love the country glam, psychedelic glitter style she has. I follow her on IG and never got the since her and this guy were that into each other. Hope it’s a clean break and they can move on. My first marriage only lasted 18 months so no judgment on the length from me! Take the good wedding gifts and move on!
I have loved her music through years and phases — from Miranda Lambert stealing her songs to her partying with Gigi Hadid and the glitterati. And his last album was both heartbreaking and brilliant. From it, I can buy the substance abuse stories. I can also buy that she reached a new level of celebrity during their marriage and that their lifestyles diverged. They were deleting photos of each other even before quarantine, so this one isn’t a shock. It is sad, though. They did some covers of duets together that were divine.
He released a song once about how she had to pick him up from the police station for drunk driving. The chorus is literally just him singing “I’m kind of an asshole” and the song details how she’s trying to talk to him on the drive home while he’s just not listening and playing, like, Candy Crush on his phone. I saw him perform it at a show (he was opening for someone else) and I just got bad vibes from the guy before I even knew who he was married to. Then a few months later she did her own version of it at a little live show called “I Married An Asshole.” The video was on the internet somewhere. Even though the songs were clearly meant to be funny, tbh I kind of felt this coming ever since I heard those songs. I believe he relapsed, and I also believe their lifestyles weren’t that compatible–which is not to blame her or anything, to be clear. It’s just a relationship dynamic that can lead to problems. When one person is a recovering addict and the other is still engaging in some kind of substance use, even a mild one like weed which is Kacey’s drug of choice, that can be triggering for the recovering addict even if the other person is cautious and avoids doing it in front of them, etc. There are no easy answers when it comes to supporting people we love who have addictions, and I believe Kacey did her best, and I think she does still love him.