Bunnie Xo fans are already pretty well-acquainted with her dad Bill, who moved closer to Bunnie and Jelly Roll when he had stage 4 cancer at the end of his life. But Bunnie’s mom Vanessa is a little bit more of a mystery, mostly because she died in 2022, back when Jelly was still a rising star in country music and fans didn’t know him and his wife as well as they do now.
Bunnie has occasionally shared pieces of her story about her mom, often on the anniversary of Vanessa’s death: Nov. 3. This year, to commemorate the anniversary, Bunnie posted footage of the one and only meal she and her mom ever shared together. It might seem strange to document a simple meal, but for Bunnie, this was much more. She and her mom were estranged for decades, but around the time this video was recorded, Vanessa had come back into Bunnie’s life.
### Bunnie Xo Explains Her Complicated Relationship With Her Mom
In the video, Bunnie reveals that the clip shows “the first & LAST dinner with my mom,” before Vanessa unexpectedly died in November 2022.
“I remember being so excited that I just had to record it [because] I wanted to remember it forever & cherish the moment,” she writes.
Bunnie’s mom, who abandoned her as a 3-month-old baby, didn’t reconnect with her until Bunnie was an adult. Vanessa ultimately moved to Tennessee in order to be closer to her daughter while receiving medical care.
> “The little girl inside me that never had this growing up was so, so excited to finally have her in the same city,” Bunnie continues, adding, “I had big plans for us & our relationship.”
Tragically, those plans were cut short when Vanessa died.
### Who Was Bunnie Xo’s Mom?
Bunnie, real name Alisa DeFord, has said that her mother Vanessa was a stripper who dealt with addiction and mental health challenges. Her late father, Bill, who was a musician, was still with Vanessa when Bunnie was born.
During a 2022 podcast chat with him, Bunnie says that Vanessa left her “on somebody’s doorstep” and “[ran] off with [Bill’s] organ player” when Bunnie was only a few months old.
“That went over well in the courtroom because I got full custody,” Bill shares during the podcast. “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,” he continues.
Bunnie says that Bill hid all evidence of Vanessa during Bunnie’s childhood, and she didn’t even see a picture of her mother until she was 21. Bunnie found Vanessa online when she was 22, and they reconnected virtually and over the phone, but they didn’t meet in person for years.
She’s spoken about spending the bulk of her life “so mad at [Vanessa] for not being the mom that I needed,” but says she found healing in their final months together before Vanessa died. It’s not clear what illness Vanessa was suffering from at the end of her life.
### What Has Jelly Roll Said About Bunnie Xo’s Late Mother?
On Nov. 9, just six days after Vanessa’s death, Bunnie and Jelly walked their very first red carpet together at the 2022 CMA Awards. It was a milestone event for the couple, and judging by the photos, you’d never know that Bunnie had lost her mother less than a week earlier.
Just days earlier, however, Jelly shared an emotional tribute to Vanessa, posting footage of the first time his own mother—Donna DeFord, who is still living—met her. At the time, Vanessa was dealing with serious health challenges.
“I hope one day my wife does a podcast and explains the journey it was to even meet her birth mother which didn’t happen until my wife was in her mid 30s,” Jelly wrote.
“And how hard, heartbreaking and healing the last year has been since my wife moved Vanessa to Tennessee to try to get her the medical help she needed. Needless to say my wife is the strongest human I have ever encountered,” he continued.
Much of Bunnie’s childhood after her mother left—as well as their process of reconciliation and her mother’s illness in Nashville—are still a little murky to fans.
Bunnie is scheduled to release a memoir called *Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic* in 2026. She’ll likely share more of those stories about her relationship with her mom in the memoir.
https://popcrush.com/ixp/204/p/bunnie-xo-mom-relationship-video/