In the weeks following her divorce from country artist Jelly Roll, Bunnie Xo found herself at the center of a familiar cultural tension: a woman in her mid-forties, newly unmoored from a decade of marriage, choosing her own company and her own pace — and being asked to justify both. A casual Waffle House breakfast with a younger acquaintance became, in the accelerated logic of social media, a moral referendum. What the moment truly revealed was less about age gaps than about the persistent expectation that women account for their freedom.
Bunnie Xo Defends Age-Gap Outing, Says It's Not a Date
We as women feel like we need permission to be selfish, and we don't.
Mark
So she's saying the Waffle House thing wasn't a date. But they were photographed kissing at a bar in Nashville just two months before. How do we square that?
Mimi
She's drawing a distinction between romantic involvement and casual friendship. The bar kiss happened in July; the Waffle House video was late September. She's saying she's spending time with multiple people, not necessarily dating any of them exclusively.
Luke
Right, but we only know about the kiss because TMZ had video. We don't actually know the nature of their relationship from her statements alone. She's clarifying what the Waffle House outing was, not necessarily what the Nashville moment was.
Mark
Fair. So the real story is about her defending her right to be seen out with younger men without it being scandalous?
Mimi
It's bigger than that. She's defending her right to have a social life at all, and to define it on her own terms. The age gap is what triggered the conversation, but her actual point is about women not needing permission to be selfish with their time.
Luke
Though we should note: the divorce was finalized in July. The Waffle House video came in September. That's a pretty compressed timeline, and some of the fan criticism was specifically about how quickly she moved on after ten years of marriage.
Mark
Did she address that directly?
Mimi
Not really. She acknowledged people would see her with multiple men, and she joked about it. But she didn't engage with the emotional question—whether it's healthy or respectful to move that fast.
Luke
And we don't have Jelly Roll's response, so we're only hearing one side of what the split meant and how it should be processed.
Mark
So the Waffle House video is really just a symptom of a larger conversation about her autonomy?
Mimi
Yes. The video is the trigger, but the substance is her claiming the right to live her life without explaining it to strangers on the internet.
Luke
Which is fair, but it's also worth noting that she chose to post the video publicly. She invited the commentary by sharing it.
Mark
True. You can't put something on social media and then be surprised when people have reactions.
Mimi
Right. But her point seems to be that the reactions reveal something about how we police women's choices—especially around age, sexuality, and the speed of moving on.
The Pulse
- A lighthearted breakfast video ignited an online firestorm the moment viewers clocked the 22-year age difference between Xo and her dining companion.
- Commenters questioned not just the age gap but the speed of Xo's post-divorce social life, framing her choices as either reckless or disrespectful to her former marriage.
- Xo pushed back directly in the comments and on a national podcast, insisting the outing was not romantic and that her fuller life — Cards Against Humanity, swimming, quiet evenings — was invisible to the fragment-hungry internet.
- Her defense escalated into a broader argument: that women should not need permission to be selfish, to prioritize themselves, or to move through the world without apology.
- The story now sits at an unresolved edge, testing whether public opinion can accommodate a woman's self-defined narrative alongside the facts it has already decided to judge.
In the weeks following her divorce from country artist Jelly Roll, Bunnie Xo found herself at the center of a familiar cultural tension: a woman in her mid-forties, newly unmoored from a decade of marriage, choosing her own company and her own pace — and being asked to justify both. A casual Waffle House breakfast with a younger acquaintance became, in the accelerated logic of social media, a moral referendum. What the moment truly revealed was less about age gaps than about the persistent expectation that women account for their freedom.
When Bunnie Xo posted a video of herself and 24-year-old reality personality Dylan Wolf at a Waffle House in late September, the caption was breezy — "POV: It's his first time at Waffle House." Within hours, the 22-year age difference between them had become the only thing anyone wanted to talk about. Xo is 46. The internet had opinions.
The criticism came in waves. Some mocked Wolf's youth with jokes about curfews and driver's licenses. Others questioned how Xo could move on so visibly after nearly a decade of marriage to country artist Jelly Roll — a relationship that began at a Las Vegas concert in 2015 and ended with a divorce finalized in July. By late summer, Xo had already been photographed kissing Wolf at Jelly Roll's Nashville bar. The Waffle House video felt, to many, like confirmation of something.
Xo didn't retreat. In the comments, she wrote that Wolf had given her back her smile and that she was living her best life. She clarified the outing wasn't a date. And on Jenna Bush Hager's podcast, she had already begun framing her post-divorce chapter on her own terms — joking that fans would see her with multiple men, maybe women, maybe a camel. She was unbothered, and she wanted that to be understood.
What she pushed back against most forcefully was the assumption that visibility equals recklessness. Her actual days, she said, were quiet: board games, swimming, working out. Social media offered only fragments. But beneath the practical defense was a larger argument — that women in their forties shouldn't need to ask permission to be selfish, to eat brownies alone, to choose their own company. "We deserve to have our own time," she said simply.
The Waffle House moment became something of a cultural stress test: could the public hold a woman's facts and her interpretation of those facts at the same time? The age gap was real. The speed of her new social life was real. So was her refusal to apologize for either.
Bunnie Xo posted a video from Waffle House in late September, sitting across from Dylan Wolf, a 24-year-old reality television personality known from the show "Calabasas Confidential." The caption was lighthearted: "POV: It's his first time at Waffle House." What might have been a forgettable moment between two people sharing a meal became, within hours, a referendum on the 22-year age gap between them. Xo is 46. The internet noticed, and it had opinions.
Fans flooded the comments with barbs about Wolf's youth. One user joked that he'd only recently gotten his driver's license and been allowed to stay out past eleven. Another suggested he was a baby in an adult world, implying Xo was taking advantage of his inexperience. A third commenter raised a different concern: how could someone move on so quickly after a decade-long marriage and act as though it meant nothing?
Xo had been married to Jelly Roll, the country music artist, for nearly ten years. They met in 2015 at a Las Vegas concert—she was a former sex worker, he was an emerging musician—and eloped a year later. The divorce was filed in May, with a separation date listed as May 9, and finalized in July. By late summer, Xo was being photographed in public with other men. In July, TMZ obtained video of her kissing Wolf at Jelly Roll's bar in Nashville. Now, two months later, the Waffle House breakfast was being treated as evidence of something more.
Xo responded directly in the comments, pushing back against the narrative. "I'm having fun & he gave me my smile back," she wrote. "Ya girl is living her best life." When pressed about whether this was a date, she was explicit: it wasn't. She had already begun laying groundwork for this defense weeks earlier, appearing on Jenna Bush Hager's podcast "Open Book" to discuss her post-divorce life. During that conversation, Xo acknowledged that people would see her out with multiple men—maybe even women, she joked. "You guys are going to see me with multiple men, maybe even a couple women. You never know. Maybe even a freaking camel."
She also addressed the assumption that her newfound freedom meant she was living recklessly. "People probably think I'm out here doing, like, ho activities, and I'm not," she said. The reality, she insisted, was mundane: playing Cards Against Humanity at home, swimming, working out. Social media showed only fragments, curated moments that didn't reflect the full picture of how she was spending her time. The Waffle House video was one frame in a much larger, quieter story.
What animated Xo's defense was a broader point about permission and selfishness. She spoke about entering a new chapter where she could prioritize herself without guilt—something she framed as a right women often feel they need to ask for. "It's being selfish. It's OK to be selfish," she explained. "We as women feel like we need permission to be selfish, and we don't." She used small examples: telling your kids to go to bed so you can eat brownies alone. But the principle extended to larger choices about how to spend her time and with whom. "We deserve to have our own time, and we deserve to pour into each other," she said. "I'm having so much fun."
The Waffle House moment, then, became a test case for how the public would respond to a woman in her mid-forties making choices that didn't fit a prescribed narrative. The age gap was real. The speed of her post-divorce social life was real. But so was her insistence that neither of these things required explanation or apology. What happens next will likely depend on whether the internet can hold both the facts and her interpretation of them at the same time.
Notable Quotes
I'm having fun & he gave me my smile back. Ya girl is living her best life.— Bunnie Xo, in comments defending the Waffle House outing
It's being selfish. It's OK to be selfish. We as women feel like we need permission to be selfish, and we don't.— Bunnie Xo, on her post-divorce philosophy during a podcast appearance
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