Stripped Down

 When the Story You Believed in Changes

I finished Stripped Down by Bunnie Xo with two completely different feelings sitting in my chest at the same time.

I really enjoyed this book.

And I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Bunnie anymore.

Maybe that sounds contradictory, but honestly, that’s exactly where this book left me.

I’ve followed Bunnie and Jelly Roll for years. I thought they were a cute couple, but it was more than that. I loved what I thought their story represented.

Two people who had lived hard lives.

Two people with pasts.

Addiction. Jail. Sex work. Trauma. Bad decisions. Broken relationships. Survival.

And somehow, they seemed to come out on the other side and build this beautiful, unconventional life together.

I rooted for them.

So when Bunnie announced Stripped Down, I was genuinely excited to read it.

And once I started reading, I really did enjoy it.

The Parts of

Stripped Down

That I Loved

One thing I appreciated about Bunnie’s story was that she didn’t try to rewrite her past into something prettier than it was.

She talks about being a stripper. She talks about escorting. She talks about addiction, trauma, relationships, survival and the choices she made along the way.

There’s something incredibly powerful about a woman being able to say:

Yes, that was me. And I am still worthy of becoming someone else.

I believe that deeply.

I don’t think any of us should have to spend the rest of our lives being defined by the worst season we ever lived through.

That was probably the part of Stripped Down that connected with me the most—the idea of overcoming.

Of getting sober.

Of rebuilding.

Of looking at a life that has gone completely off the rails and deciding that it isn’t going to end there.

Because recovery isn’t simply about putting down a substance.

Sometimes recovery means rebuilding your entire identity.

It means figuring out who you are when you aren’t surviving anymore.

And Bunnie’s story is messy.

But aren’t most redemption stories?

Then There Was God

The faith aspect of the book stayed with me, too.

Bunnie talks about God and about looking back over her life and recognizing that He was there even during the times when her life certainly didn’t look like a traditional Christian testimony.

And I loved that.

Because I don’t believe God waits for us to clean ourselves up before He meets us.

Sometimes it’s only years later that you can look backward and realize that God was carrying you through places where you couldn’t see Him at all.

There was something beautiful about that message.

Your mess can become your message.

Your past doesn’t disqualify you from having a future.

You can have chapters in your story that you’re not proud of without throwing away the whole book.

Those are messages I believe in.

Which is probably part of the reason I finished Stripped Down feeling so conflicted.

Because I Wasn’t Just Reading About This World. This Was Part of Our Summer.

There’s another reason this story feels a little more personal to me.

This summer, I took my girls to their very first concert.

Jelly Roll and Post Malone.

We bought the shirts. We took the pictures. We sang along. We experienced the insanity of a huge stadium concert together.

And I got to watch my girls experience their first concert.

That’s one of those mom memories I’m going to keep.

I wasn’t just reading about this world. This was part of our summer.

I had followed Jelly and Bunnie for years, and I genuinely rooted for them. I loved what I thought their story represented—two people with complicated pasts who found recovery, success, faith and somehow found each other along the way.

So Stripped Down wasn’t some random celebrity memoir I grabbed off a shelf.

I was excited to read Bunnie’s story because I already felt invested in what they seemed to stand for.

Maybe that’s part of why everything that has happened since has left me with so many questions.

Was Any of It Real?

That’s the uncomfortable question I kept coming back to after I finished the book.

Was this real?

Did she really believe all of this when she wrote it?

Was their relationship already falling apart behind closed doors?

Was the relationship we had been watching online completely different from the one they were actually living?

Was I following a love story—or was I following a brand?

And here’s the frustrating answer:

I don’t know.

None of us do.

Because I don’t actually know Bunnie.

I don’t know Jelly.

Following someone for years can create this strange illusion that we know them. Podcasts, Instagram, TikTok and interviews let us into people’s kitchens, bedrooms, marriages and family lives.

Eventually, they can start feeling familiar.

But familiar isn’t the same thing as knowing someone.

We see what people choose to show us.

That’s it.

Does What Happened Later Make the Book a Lie?

This may be the biggest question Stripped Down left me thinking about.

If someone’s life changes after they write their redemption story, does that mean the redemption wasn’t real?

I don’t think the answer is necessarily yes.

A marriage ending doesn’t automatically mean that every beautiful moment inside that marriage was fake.

A person changing doesn’t necessarily mean the person they were six months earlier was lying.

And someone’s life getting messy again doesn’t erase every bit of progress they made before it happened.

Maybe she meant every word when she wrote it.

Maybe their love was completely real during the years we watched it.

Maybe two people can genuinely love each other, survive enormous things together, change each other’s lives—and still reach a point where their relationship doesn’t survive.

I don’t know.

And neither does anyone watching from the outside.

Maybe that’s what makes it uncomfortable.

We like redemption stories with tidy endings.

They struggled.

They found God.

They got sober.

They found love.

They became successful.

And they lived happily ever after.

Except real life doesn’t usually work that way.

So Do I Still Like Bunnie Xo?

I don’t know.

And I’m okay admitting that.

I don’t know if I’m still a fan in quite the same way I was before.

I’m confused by some of what I’ve seen. I’m disappointed by some things. And after reading such an intimate story, I probably have more questions now than I did before I opened the book.

But here’s something else I’ve realized:

I can enjoy someone’s book without agreeing with every decision they make afterward.

I can appreciate Bunnie’s story of survival without making her my hero.

I can admire the parts about recovery and rebuilding without pretending I know everything happening in her life today.

I can question things without deciding that everything was a lie.

And I can still treasure taking my daughters to that Jelly Roll concert.

That memory belongs to us.

Nothing that happens between two celebrities can take it away.

Would I Recommend

Stripped Down

?

Yes.

I really would.

Especially to women who have lived lives they’re not always proud of.

Women in recovery.

Women rebuilding after trauma.

Women who have been judged because of their past.

Women who have had to reinvent themselves.

Women who wonder whether they’ve screwed up too badly to ever build something beautiful.

There is something powerful in reading about a woman who came from circumstances most people would never want publicly attached to their name and refused to pretend those chapters didn’t exist.

I enjoyed the rawness.

I enjoyed the recovery story.

I enjoyed the faith.

I enjoyed the honesty.

And maybe the fact that I closed the book with complicated feelings isn’t necessarily a criticism.

Maybe that’s part of what made it worth reading.

Because redemption isn’t a finish line.

You don’t overcome addiction, trauma or your past and receive some certificate saying:

Congratulations. You are now permanently healed and will never make another questionable decision.

We’re human.

We keep becoming.

We keep screwing up.

We keep learning.

We keep deciding what the next chapter is going to look like.

Maybe Stripped Down isn’t the ending of Bunnie Xo’s redemption story.

Maybe it’s simply one chapter.

And maybe that’s something worth remembering about our own stories, too.

You don’t have to have the ending figured out for the chapter you’re living right now to have been real.

— Holler Girl Rising