While many of us are kicking back, feet up and chomping down on roast turkey with all the trimmings, Bunnie Xo is on a different type of mission this Thanksgiving.
Bunnie is knuckling down to help women escaping domestic violence.
The podcaster and her team are providing Thanksgiving dinner and care packages for women in transitional housing at the Mary Parrish Center, in search of a fresh start, a safer life.
“Thanksgiving is about giving back. And that’s exactly what we’re doing today,” Bunnie tells Extra.
Bunnie tells Extra she knows from experience how tough it can be out there. “Going through a situation personally around 2013 to 2016 with my own domestic violence relationship has just made this mission for myself,” she remarks, “even more of wanting to give back and wanting to be there for the women and the children that are going through this because I know how hard it is to get out.”
Now happily married now to country star Jelly Roll, Bunnie hasn’t forgotten those harrowing days, which she recounts in her new book “Stripped Down.”
As Thanksgiving approaches, Bunnie shared a stark image of spousal abuse — a photo of her with a swollen black eye. The intention of posting the shocking photo, she says, is “that women could see like, ‘Okay, she’s been where I’m at and she gets it.’ I want somebody that I can relate to, and I hope that these women know that I have been exactly where they are and I just want to lift them up and just make them feel so good and loved and know that they’re doing the right thing.”
She adds, “I just want them to keep going. Don’t ever look back. Smash the rearview mirror.”
Just a week ago, Bunnie put up her hand and confessed to some past errors of her own, which could result in jail time. Speaking on her Dumb Blonde podcast, the host admitted that she has to turn herself in to serve time for unknowingly driving for years with a suspended license, those issues apparently tying back to a minor driving incident from half a decade ago.
“I got my lawyer on it, whatever,” she explained. “It looks like your girl is gonna have to go book herself in. If I do — you guys have seen all my past mug shots — I’m going in glammed the f–k up, baby, and I’m going to vlog it.”
Watch the full piece on Bunnie’s Thanksgiving mission below on Extra, now in its 32nd with host Derek Hough.