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Culture February 12, 2021

Kacey Musgraves reveals divorce from Ruston Kelly inspired her new album

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Kacey Musgraves offered rare insight about her divorce from husband Ruston Kelly in a new interview, telling Rolling Stone how their split inspired her new album.

The six-time Grammy winner told the mag that the past year tested her in many ways that went beyond the dissolution of her three-year marriage.

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"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," Musgraves, 32, explained.

Musgraves said she was "inspired" to turn that tragedy into an album which she intends to release later this year.

"I started looking into why portraying a tragedy is actually therapeutic and why it is a form of art that has lasted for centuries," she said. "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."

PHOTO: Kacey Musgraves and Ruston Kelly arrive for an event, Feb. 5, 2020, in New York City.
GC Images/Getty Images, FILE
Kacey Musgraves and Ruston Kelly arrive for an event, Feb. 5, 2020, in New York City.

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

The "Follow Your Arrow" singer admitted that while the album was therapeutic, she is still healing.

"Part of me questions marriage as a whole, in general," she said.

"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," she said. "I think I live best by myself. I think it’s OK to realize that."