Sara Evans details her reconciliation with Jay Barker despite filing for divorce and ex-NFL star's arrest

Sara Evans, the American country singer and songwriter recently revealed that she and her husband Jay Barker, a former football player, are officially giving their marriage another chance after she filed for divorce in August 2021.

On Thursday, March 21, in the first episode of her new podcast, Diving in Deep with Sara Evans, the singer expressed,

"We’re so happy now, but I don’t want anyone to think that I'm advocating staying in a relationship where you are ever, in your gut, you know that you need to exit the situation. Every woman needs to follow her gut on that and do what is best for her. I believe and I hope that I’ve done that."

The former football player was also charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in January 2022, after he allegedly attempted to hit Sara's car with his own.

Sara and Jay tied the knot on June 12, 2008, and she shares three children daughters Audrey, 19, and Olivia, 21, and son Avery, 24, with her ex-husband Craig Schelske.

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Sara Evans reveals she and husband Jay Barker are back together after divorce and 2022 arrest

Sara Evans is diving deep into her relationship with Jay Barker in her new podcast. The release of the first episode also aligns with the announcement of her forthcoming album Unbroke, which will drop on June 7, 2024.

The singer opened up about her reconciliation with her husband of almost 16 years in the new episode that came out this Thursday. She had filed for divorce from the former football player, in 2021 and Jay was arrested for alleged assault on the family the next year.

During the podcast, Sara Evans broke down the events of the night of his arrest. The couple had met for lunch earlier in the day and gotten into a verbal argument “because he wasn’t getting his way.”

Evans went to a friend’s house for a bonfire with one of her daughters as Barker spammed her phone with text messages. He was allegedly blaming Sara Evans for the bad state of their relationship. Barker was waiting outside the home when they returned and he had an argument with the singer's daughter "who had never seen that side of him, ever."

During the podcast, she further said:

"Then he jumped in his truck, and he [was] sort of backing up at a very high speed. I knew Jay, so I didn’t feel the same way that my child felt. My child thought he was gonna plow our car down, that he was backing up towards our car, and that she was about to watch something horrific, or at the very least, an accident, which would have been his truck hitting my side of the car, where I was in the front seat. She was terrified."

The artist's daughter then called 911, and Jay fled the scene. He eventually returned home and was arrested in January 2022, with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. However, according to police records, the NFL star entered a “best interest” plea to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment and served one year of probation.

The pair decided to rekindle their relationship months later after Jay sent Sara Evans a text saying, "Everybody says that I shouldn’t contact you, but you are still my wife." She explained,

"A lot of women will judge me and want to judge me. When he said, ‘But you are still my wife,’ I don’t know. I just melted because I thought, ‘I am still your wife, and we can talk if we want to. We’re both adults. So I texted him back and I think I just said something short and sweet like, ‘How are you? I’m on the road’ and we sort of tiptoed back to each other."

Sara Evans had laid certain ground rules for their relationship, therapy, and marriage counseling.

Her new single Pride, from her upcoming album Unbroke, chronicles her journey with Barker.