After their wedding in 2013, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires became an alternative-country power couple, a Johnny and June for the social media age. So when reports surfaced back in February 2024 that Isbell had filed for divorce, their fans were left in shock. Their relationship troubles were the backdrop of Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed, a 2023 documentary—but the couple seemed like they were on the road to figuring things out. But in December 2023, Isbell filed for divorce, and in later interviews he suggested that he was the one who initiated the split, citing problems with work-life balance.
Now, nearly two years later, the divorce papers are finalized—and the pair have spent the better part of 2025 litigating their difficult dissolution in song. In March, Isbell released Foxes in the Snow, a spare and morose solo record. On September 26, Shires responded with Nobody’s Girl, which is more strident and haunting.
How did the former couple end up in a he-sang, she-sang battle that has divided the country mediasphere?
Born in Alabama, Isbell is a heartfelt country rocker and former member of the Drive-By Truckers who hit it big after going solo. His backing band is called the 400 Unit. Shires, a native of Lubbock, Texas, got an early start as a fiddle player in legendary Western swing band the Texas Playboys before branching out into a solo career in 2005, then joining Isbell’s band. They started dating in 2011, and in 2012, Shires helped Isbell’s manager get Isbell into rehab for his alcoholism. They married in 2013, and had a daughter, Mercy, together in 2015.
During the course of their marriage, both experienced major career growth, often through work they made together. Though Shires still does solo work, in 2019, she joined the Highwomen, a country supergroup also featuring Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, and songwriter Natalie Hemby. Isbell, meanwhile, had a stratospheric rise, becoming well-known as a progressive voice in Nashville as he won six Grammy awards from 2016 to 2024. He also launched an acting career, and in 2020, he played an unctuous and bumbling henchman in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
After the split, Isbell started dating Anna Weyant, a painter known for her affiliation with celebrity gallerist Larry Gagosian; they met after he read an article about her in GQ and reached out, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Both singer-songwriters have long written autobiographical material, and with new albums out, they’ve been addressing the problems in their relationship during their promotional cycles. Isbell got a head start when he talked to a slew of journalists back in March, including NPR’s Terry Gross.
To Gross, Isbell was conciliatory about Shires. He said that his album ruminates on dark topics because of his traumatic upbringing. “The record’s about growing and changing as me, myself, and not about accusing Amanda or any other individual person of any wrongdoing,” he said. “I don’t think there’s really any criticism at all…. I think perspective, empathy, for the other person starts to sink in as time passes.”
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