Kacey Musgraves Plots New Album, Opens Up About Divorce

Check out her candid thoughts on marriage and divorce.

Written by Chris Parton
Kacey Musgraves Plots New Album, Opens Up About Divorce
AUSTIN, TEXAS - OCTOBER 06: Kacey Musgraves performs during the ACL Music Festival 2019 at Zilker Park on October 06, 2019 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/FilmMagic)

Kacey Musgraves opens up about new music and old love in a detailed profile in Rolling Stone, speaking candidly about her divorce from Ruston Kelly for the first time.

The Golden Hour Grammy winner and Kelly announced their split in July of 2020 after nearly three years of marriage, but have remained silent on what happened … until now. And according to the story, it sounds like a case of simply growing apart.

“[The marriage] just simply didn’t work out,” Musgraves tells the magazine. “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. I mean, seasons change. Our season changed.”

Musgraves and Kelley were married in a private ceremony in 2017, and fans speculated that their relationship was the catalyst for Musgraves’ acclaimed Golden Hour album. That emotionally-stunning set ended up winning the coveted Album of the Year Grammy in 2019, and in the cover story goes on to explain more about the way the pair broke up. They remain supportive of each other, but Musgraves does say she feels better off living alone.

“Part of me questions marriage as a whole, in general,” Musgraves admits. “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.”

The revelations were intriguing beyond mere curiosity, though, since Kacey Musgraves also said her split has partly inspired her next album — a project she announced will arrive this year. The Texas native said she’s written almost 40 songs already and is co-producing the set with Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian (who also worked on Golden Hour), and fans can expect some stark observations about love and the world in general.

“This last chapter of my life and this whole last year and chapter for our country — at its most simple form, it’s a tragedy,” she says. “And then I started looking into why portraying a tragedy is actually therapeutic and why it is a form of art that has lasted for centuries. It’s because you set the scene, the audience rises to the climax of the problem with you, and then there’s resolve. There’s a feeling of resolution at the end. I was inspired by that.

“I can’t help but to write about what I’m going through,” Musgraves went on. “I want to honor the huge range of emotion that I’ve felt over this past year, past six months. I also want to honor the relationship we had and the love we have for each other. Because it’s very real.”