Jelly Roll is opening up about a side effect of wanting to expand his family with wife Bunnie XO.
“First of all, you are just the cutest little nugget I’ve ever seen in my life,” the country singer, 41, told 8-year-old aerialist Kaylen Fairchild while judging her performance during the Wednesday, January 28, episode of Netflix’s Star Search. “Me and my wife have baby fever, and you just tripled that tonight.”
Jelly’s baby fever comes after he and Bunnie, 45, revealed their plans to welcome a child via IVF or surrogacy. (Jelly is already the dad of daughter Bailee, 16, and son Noah, 7.)
“My wife and I are talking about having a baby, and it really made me realize that at almost 40, I was like, it means I got to live to at least 60. I got to see this kid into college,” Jelly, who has lost 300 pounds since late 2022, said during a June 2024 episode of the “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast.
Shortly after the episode dropped, Bunnie (real name Alyssa DeFord) took to Instagram to speak out about their fertility journey.
“Papabear dropped a surprise on this pod today,” the “Dumb Blonde” podcast host wrote over a clip of Jelly’s interview. “We had planned on doing this privately, but decided our IVF journey needed to be shared because we’ve always been so open. And w/all odds stacked against us, it’s always been hard & we have only just begun.”
Bunnie added in the caption, “God Willing- Baby DeFord 2026 💫 @bussinwtb.”
Bunnie has shared multiple updates on the process since then, revealing in July 2024 that they had been working with a fertility specialist since 2019 and ultimately decided to use a surrogate.
“I’m just going to be honest with you guys. I am not going to carry the baby,” she said on her podcast at the time. “I am not mentally well enough to let my hormones get out of whack. … I have gotten to a place where I’m even-keeled. My anxiety is finally good. I don’t have depression — of course I have down days and stuff like that, but nothing like what I went through in 2019.”
She continued, “There is nothing wrong with having a surrogate. I would have trouble carrying a baby. I have lost many babies, you know. One, we don’t have the time to go through that. Two, my schedule does not allow for me to … have another miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy.” (Bunnie revealed in 2025 that she had experienced two ectopic pregnancies.)
In June 2025, Bunnie revealed that the couple had received positive news in their fertility journey.
“When you just got the call you’ve been waiting on for five months since this IVF journey started. All the tears, the hopelessness & the struggle, God finally said ‘Here,’” she wrote via Instagram, clarifying that she wasn’t pregnant but it was still a “huge win” for her and Jelly.
The Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic author later shared another update in November 2025.
“It is tough, but at the same time it’s like, you just put it in God’s hands,” she said on her podcast. “If it’s meant to be it’s meant to be. And if not, we can always adopt. I’m totally open to adoption too and so is my husband.”
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