Kristin Cavallari Reveals The Split From Jay Cutler Was A Really Long Time Coming

Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavallari Very Cavallari screenshot

Kristin Cavallari is used to sharing her personal thoughts and feelings with the world on reality shows including Very Cavallari, but she’s now opening up about the internal struggle her marriage was putting her through during that time. She wasn’t open on the show about her real feelings when deciding to divorce Jay Cutler, but she has decided now to reveal just how long she was thinking about divorcing the former Bears quarterback.

In fact, she'd been contemplating it for a long time. While the decision to divorce usually doesn’t just crop up out of nowhere, Kristin Cavallari said she consistently thought about it for two years before she and Jay Cutler actually split up, sharing in her first interviews following the split:

It was not an easy decision, obviously. It was something that I truly thought about every single day for over two years. It was the hardest decision that I have ever made. But I don't know, my mom [Judith Spies Eifrig] used to say, 'You'll know when it's time.' I feel like that was true. I knew. And that's that.

Speaking with ET on the specifics of her divorce for the first time, Kristin Cavallari actually revealed it was advice from her mom that helped her to really get to the place she needed to be when she and her former partner decided to call it quits earlier in 2020. The two had been together for 10 years and married for around seven at the point when they decided to divorce.

Kristin Cavallari, now 33, also spoke out about meeting Jay Cutler at 23 and how the two had to grow up together. Still, sharing major life events including having three kids, Cutler’s retirement from the NFL, and filming a reality series together just wasn’t enough to keep moving forward together. After a trip in the Bahamas during quarantine, Cavallari and Cutler called it quits. She noted:

Every relationship has their stuff. I met Jay when I was 23. I was a baby. Jay and I had so much love for each other, but we grew up. When you work at something for so many years and nothing's changing, I think you have to just make a decision. We all want to be happy,

Kristin Cavallari also admitted to People that while viewers never really saw the struggles she and Jay Cutler were going through, those who worked on Very Cavallari behind the scenes did. Though it is worth noting Cavallari would say things sometimes on the show about marriages having problems, mentioning that she’d “always been vocal” on that subject during actual episodes. She even had conversations with Cutler asking him to step up after he retired and her career was taking off, but it can be hard to tell the difference between working through a marriage on TV and actual problems leading to a break-up.

Producers saw stuff, but they didn't put it in the show — which is good, because I don't want my kids to ever [see that].

Meanwhile, Kristin Cavillari ultimately sought to cancel her E! series so that her split from Jay Cutler would not need to play out on the big screen. Both former partners seem to be moving on and moving forward and have been avid on social media since the split, and both have seemed to have made efforts to keep the family together on big holidays. Ultimately, that’s probably the best any couple that decides to split can ask for.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.