Bunnie Xo has candidly addressed her complex family dynamics over the years.
The “Dumb Blonde” podcast host (real name Alisa DeFord) was abandoned by her mother, Vanessa, when she was only three months old and grew up having a strained relationship with her father, Bill. She reconnected with both parents later in life but has struggled to maintain close bonds with her siblings.
Bunnie has, however, expressed hope of having children with her husband, Jelly Roll, specifically because of the healing she experienced with her own parents. (Bunnie is a stepmom to Jelly Roll’s two children: daughter Bailee Ann DeFord, born in May 2008, and son Noah Buddy DeFord, born in August 2016.)
“I just feel like I’ve been healing so much trauma with my parents that I finally am ready to be a parent,” she told “Dumb Blonde” listeners in January 2025. “I just want a little piece of [Jelly Roll] and I together.”
Keep scrolling for more about Bunnie’s complex relationships with her family.
Bunnie Xo Had a Strained Relationship With Her Mom Vanessa
Bunnie Xo has claimed that her late mom, Vanessa, abandoned her only a few months after she was born because she struggled with addiction.
During a 2021 podcast interview with her dad, Bill, Bunnie recalled that her mom left her “on somebody’s doorstep” and ran off with one of Bill’s bandmates.
“That went over well in the courtroom because I got full custody,” Bill said. “They always give the wife the child, and they were just about to do that, and I jumped up and I said, ‘No, there’s no way that you can do this.’ I told them that story, and it was all over after that.”
As an adult, Bunnie reconnected with Vanessa before her mother died suddenly in 2022.
“[My mom] lived her life hiding from demons she couldn’t conquer,” Bunnie explained via Instagram in April 2024. “I spent most of my life being mad at her for not being the mom I needed, not understanding that her one lesson she was sent here to teach me was in her death.”
She added, “Rest easy, Mama, forgiving you was the best thing I ever did.”
Bunnie Xo Reconnected With Her Dad Bill as He Battled Cancer
Bunnie Xo also had a rocky relationship with her dad as a child, though they grew close when he was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. She even helped move her dad from Texas to Tennessee so they could live closer as he received cancer treatment.
When Bill died from cancer in 2024, Bunnie described the musician as her “favorite rock star.”
“Hey Bill, I’m going to miss you,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “You are still my favorite rock star & my hero. This one’s going to hurt. Rest easy & don’t make too many angels fall in love.”
Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo kiss her dad, Bill. Courtesy Instagram / Bunnie Xo
However, Bunnie admitted on a subsequent “Dumb Blonde” episode that she’d fallen out with Bill shortly before his death. Due to an argument with Bill and his wife, Bunnie didn’t even know he was receiving end-of-life care until it was too late.
“I started looking for jets [when I found out],” she remembered. “Our tour manager Ron was sending us quotes back and forth and we were about to lock in a jet, and as soon as we were about to lock in a jet, [Bill’s wife calls] me and she says, ‘He just passed away.’”
Bunnie Xo ‘Absolutely’ Does Not Want a Relationship With Sister ‘Large Marge’
The podcaster’s fraught relationship with her sisters has also come up on “Dumb Blonde” over the years.
Bunnie Xo admitted on her podcast in April 2026 that she no longer wished to have any relationship with her oldest half-sister, Large Marge. Bunnie claimed she caught Large Marge “talking s***” on TikTok after paying $10,000 for her to have emergency surgery.
“I bought her every f***ing thing for her apartment because I was so happy she got her own apartment. I paid her rent multiple times,” Bunnie claimed. “She went and talked s*** about me … it was my birthday and she was like, ‘Oh, I forgot on purpose.’”
Bunnie went on, “It was like, ‘Bitch, you know? What the f***? What more can I do for you? Do you want to cut my skin off and wear it?’”
Jelly Roll spoke out about wife Bunnie Xo‘s memoir, which featured surprise revelations about their marriage, his infidelity and their sex life, for the first time. “It was rough at times just for me to read it,” Jelly Roll, 41, told People on Tuesday, February 17, about Bunnie Xo’s Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic. The […]
The Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic author was also annoyed that her sister described herself as “the villain in [Bunnie’s] story” and Bunnie’s “very much estranged and entitled big sister who is toxic” on her TikTok bio.
“I do not want to have a relationship with her,” Bunnie vowed. “I have tried for 30-something years. … I’ve only met this woman twice and have done so much for her.”
She asked, “What more can I f***ing do for you to make you happy and make you love me properly?”
Marge’s social media is either private or has been deleted.
Bunnie Xo Also Distanced Herself From Her Younger Sister
In that same April 2026 “Dumb Blonde” podcast episode, Bunnie Xo said that she “loves” her younger sister but chooses to keep her distance. She appeared reluctant to give too many details about their relationship or even refer to her sister by name.
“No human in the world can make me laugh the way she does. She’s so f***ing funny, funny,” Bunnie said of her younger sibling. “I just feel like our soul contracts are fulfilled.”
Bunnie further explained, “I feel like I came here to be her big sister and I feel like she came here to be my little sister. We both taught each other lessons that family isn’t always blood. I’m not a victim with my little sister — I don’t want to make it seem that way, at all — but she’s not easy to get along with.”
Bunnie insisted that she doesn’t have time for the “inconsistency” that her little sister brings to her life and thus has stopped responding to her text messages.
“I don’t have time for it. I’m f***ing old as s***,” she quipped. “The last thing I want to do is walk on eggshells around people I don’t have to. … I have nothing to say to [her]. We have nothing to talk about.”