After announcing in July 2020 that she was splitting from husband Ruston Kelly, Kacey Musgraves has addressed her divorce for the first time, opening up about the dissolution of her marriage in a new interview with Rolling Stone. The “Butterflies” singer kept her revelations brief, explaining that she and Kelly “just simply didn’t work out.”
“It’s nothing more than that. It’s two people who love each other so much, but for so many reasons, it just didn’t work,” she said. “I mean, seasons change. Our season changed.” The author also offers additional quotes Musgraves made on marriage, though not specifically about Kelly, who she wed in October 2017. “Part of me questions marriage as a whole, in general,” Musgraves said at one point. “I mean, I was open to it when it came into my life. I embraced it. I just have to tell myself I was brave to follow through on those feelings. But look at Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. They’re doing something right.”
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“I think I live best by myself. I think it’s OK to realize that,” she later shared, as well as, “I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on growing up as a woman in the South and being a performer from a young age — we were told to please, to make this person happy. That has to imprint on your code. It kind of erodes boundaries. So I’m trying to examine things that may not be useful anymore and maybe unlearn some things.”
Musgraves is currently working on her fourth album, which will follow 2018’s critically acclaimed Golden Hour, much of which was inspired by Kelly. The Rolling Stone profile included coverage of a writing session between Musgraves and producers Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian, during which the trio came up with an idea for a song called “Star-Crossed.”
“Let me set the scene / Two lovers ripped right at the seams,” potential lyrics read. “Woke up from the perfect dream / And then the darkness came / Signed the papers yesterday / You came and took your things away / I moved out of the home we made / And gave you back your name.”
As she navigates a new stage of her life, Musgraves shared that she wants to “continue to make healthy choices for myself physically, mentally.” That includes accepting that catharsis “is a moving target,” and that “doing the right thing just doesn’t feel right sometimes.” “I’m in a night period,” she said. “But what’s great about that is that next is another light period. It will come again.”
