Kristin Cavallari got candid about feeling pain from her divorce with Jay Cutler.
Cavallari, 39, opened up about her 2022 divorce from Cutler, 52, during a Tuesday, February 17, episode of her “Let’s Be Honest” podcast. While chatting about letting life “take the reins.”
“Life can surprise you,” she said, noting she’s learned to stop being “a control freak.”
“This is a big one that I did not do until I got a divorce — Learn to love the hard times too,” Kristin added. “There is beauty in pain and we need the dark to appreciate the light. For so many years, as long as I could remember, I didn’t wanna feel anything. I wanted to push everything away. I was like, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m the tough girl.’”
Kristin Cavallari and Jay Cutler’s Honest Quotes About Their Divorce
Cavallari also shared that she “didn’t know how to ask for help” or be “vulnerable.”
“During my divorce, I was like, ‘You know what? This is the first time in my life I wanna feel it all. I wanna experience it all. The good, the bad, the ugly, I wanna feel the pain. I wanna sit in it. I don’t wanna rush or run from it.’” She continued, “And thank God I did, because that was where the majority of my growth and life came from. The pain, and the hurt, and the suffering is there to teach us something.”
Cavallari, who was married to Cutler for nearly seven years, added that it’s a “disservice to yourself” to run from pain because “the real beauty is sitting in that pain.”
“That’s how you get to the other side, where it’s even more beautiful,” she said.
Cavallari also noted that there is a time and place to be “the tough girl,” too. “When I was in survival mode, it really served a purpose,” she explained. “I needed it to get to where I was going and then it got to a point in life where it doesn’t serve anymore.”
When it comes to letting life “take the reins,” Cavallari shared that she “used to be a control freak,” which she saw as “a trauma response.”
Now, the actress has “kicked [her] feet up” and learned to let life “take the reins.”
“It’s kinda fun to let life surprise you and let the universe be your guide sometimes,” she said.
Cavallari and Cutler met in 2010 after being set up by a mutual friend. In 2011, he got down on one knee and popped the question. One year later, the couple welcomed their first child together, son Camden, now 13. The duo tied the knot in 2013 and welcomed their second son, Jaxon, now 11, in 2014. One year later, Cavallari gave birth to daughter Saylor, 9. The couple split in 2020 and their divorce was finalized in 2022.
Kristin Cavallari Details ‘Growth’ Over Last 5 Years After Jay Cutler Divorce
In June 2025, Cavallari exclusively opened up to Us Weekly about the growth she’s experienced since her divorce from Cutler.
“The last five years have been instrumental for me,” she told Us, noting, “I think growing up and realizing that what I had done previously wasn’t working for me and I needed to figure out what needed to change in order to set up the second half of my life to be really peaceful.”
