They may have gone their separate ways, but Kristin Cavallari still credits ex-husband Jay Cutler for the positive turn her life took a decade ago.
As she recalled on the Oct. 25 episode of The Skinny Confidential Him & Her podcast, the Laguna Beach alum had been trying to be taken seriously as an actress and out of gossip magazines. However, "money talked" and she returned to reality TV for the final seasons of The Hills in 2009 and 2010.
With her new gig, she was thrust back into the tabloid world, and ended up facing 10 paparazzi outside of her house every day along with reports that she needed to go to rehab and wasn't showering. "I understood the game," she said of the media attention, "but it definitely was difficult at times."
By the time she finished with her second season, Cavallari really wanted to leave Los Angeles when fate answered her wish. After heading to Chicago to see her mom, she crossed paths with Cutler. The two ended up marrying in 2013 and lived together in the Windy City while he played for the Chicago Bears. There, they welcomed three children together: Camden, 9, Jaxon, 7 and Saylor, 5.
"I'm thankful because it got me out of LA. It really settled me down—getting married and having kids," she said. "Honestly thank God because I was essentially a stay-at-home mom."
And, unlike in Hollywood, there was just one paparazzi they came across in Chicago. "We made his life such a living hell," she said, "he stopped coming around."
By 2020, however, their marriage had come to an end. "With great sadness, after 10 years together we have come to a loving conclusion to get a divorce," Cavallari posted on Instagram. "We have nothing but love and respect for one another and are deeply grateful for the years shared, memories made, and the children we are so proud of. This is just the situation of two people growing apart. We ask everyone to respect our privacy as we navigate this difficult time within our family."
More recently, she revealed they went on a couple of post-split dates months ago, but it didn't change anything between them. "The thing with Jay and I is we aren't getting a divorce because of love lost, which made it really challenging because we were crazy about each other," she said on the Off the Vine podcast. "And so I just decided I didn't want to be in a toxic relationship anymore and I had to break it off. But that's made it hard and made me sit here and question it for a few months. But then going back and dating him a little bit made me reaffirm, like, 'No, I know that I'm doing the right decision.'"