The Most Devastating Things Jana Kramer Has Ever Admitted About Her Personal Life
The following article includes references to domestic abuse and suicide.
If there's one thing that can be said about Jana Kramer, it's that she's certainly not afraid to be open and honest about her personal life. The country singer and former "One Tree Hill" star has been extremely candid about her life over the years, and she hasn't shied away from letting fans in on many things most people would probably prefer to sweep under the rug.
Kramer has revealed some of her most personal inner thoughts and feelings on her podcast, "Whine Down with Jana Kramer," where she regularly addresses her rollercoaster relationship with former NFL player Mike Caussin and the many problems they faced in their marriage. The star has also been frank with her supporters about other pieces of her personal life; evidently, no topic is off limits.
Read on for some of the most devastating things Kramer has ever revealed about her life on her podcast, social media, and beyond.
Jana Kramer posted about a scary incident involving her infant son
In 2019, Jana Kramer recounted something terrifying that happened to her son, Jace. Taking to Instagram a few days after the incident, Kramer opened up to her followers about how she woke up in the middle of the night to see her two-month-old baby in his cot in danger of suffocating.
"I woke up with mom panic and looked at the monitor and saw Jace's face completely covered by his swaddle," she wrote in the very candid social media post, calling the moment "incredibly scary." She said she knew she had put the swaddle on the newborn the right way and had used the correct one for him, but revealed that "he has bad reflux so he squirms a lot and he managed to get this fleece swaddle over his head."
Fortunately, Kramer was awake just at the right time and managed to save her son before anything bad could happen, but she admitted she had to delete the photo of the moment captured by the baby monitor because it "disturbed [her] that much." She added that she'd been left feeling "sick" as she played out in her head how things could have been so much worse.
Kramer shared the cautionary tale alongside a photo of her adorable son sitting up in a light yellow and grey onesie.
Mike Caussin and Jana Kramer have been candid about their relationship troubles
Perhaps most notably, Jana Kramer has been frank about the ups and many downs of her marriage to Mike Caussin. It's safe to say the two have pretty much laid everything out in the open about their relationship and gotten into some very personal topics, including Caussin's sex addiction, their many fights, their breakups, and makeups.
In one particularly candid chat on "Whine Down with Jana Kramer" in 2018, the two talked about how Caussin's infidelity had affected their sex life. "There's times when I do want to have sex and I play the game of waiting for you to come to me because I'm like, 'Well, you know, why doesn't he want me? Why doesn't he want to sleep with me since he slept with someone else?'" she said.
Another bombshell came during a March 2019 episode of "Whine Down," when Kramer revealed Caussin had a "massive" relapse in his sex addiction the year before. The athlete maintained that he had "no sex outside the marriage," while Kramer added, "It wasn't physical out of the marriage, it was something where the action was, basically." After noting that it was a relief "when someone didn't show up," Kramer shared, "I showed up at the hotel instead, if you really want to know."
In April 2021, Kramer announced on Instagram that she'd filed for divorce. The news arrived amid rumors he'd been unfaithful again (via People).
Jana Kramer has talked about suffering multiple miscarriages
In addition to laying their marriage issues out for all the world to see, Jana Kramer also talked about going through miscarriages. Kramer first shared the news in 2017 on Instagram when she uploaded a photo of herself holding a sonogram.
"I debated posting this for the exact reason why it's a silent struggle. I don't want I'm sorry or sympathy. I just don't want to feel alone. And I know I'm not," she wrote in the caption, confirming it was not her first time experiencing baby loss. She said she had been "suffering silently" but decided to post the information so publicly because she wanted to show support for others going through the same thing.
Kramer went on to get pregnant with their second child, Jace, in 2018 and spoke out about her miscarriages in a YouTube vlog. She said in the July 2018 video that she wanted "to be as open and honest and raw as possible" and "wanted to share ... [her] journey to becoming pregnant."
In the video, she shared she and Mike Caussin were unable to get pregnant and turned to IVF, after which she experienced a "very early loss" before getting pregnant naturally with their daughter, Jolie. "The times that I've miscarried after Jolie, I just remember looking at her like, 'Man, I'm so lucky to have her,'" Kramer said. After two failed attempts at IVF, they conceived their son, Jace, naturally.
Self-worth has been a tough hurdle for Jana Kramer
Learning her self-worth hasn't been easy for Jana Kramer. The actor spoke openly about her self-esteem issues in her and Mike Caussin's joint 2020 book, "The Good Fight: Wanting to Leave, Choosing to Stay, and the Powerful Practice for Loving Faithfully."
Jana shared that she's craved "validation from men" for many years and described it as still being her "biggest struggle" today. "I entered high school wanting men to pay attention to me and tell me that I was 'good enough,'" she recalled. The star said her struggle likely stemmed from her parents' divorce when her mom, Nora Kramer, tried to make her marriage to Kramer's dad, Martin Kramer, work following his infidelity.
Jana seems determined to break that cycle and got candid about her hopes for her daughter, Jolie, in a June 2021 Instagram post. She uploaded a snap of the two holding hands while looking out at the ocean and told Jolie via the caption, "I want you to always know your worth. I want you to know you will always be okay no matter what."
Jana posted the upload with the hashtag "#singlemom" and wrote she was still working hard on valuing herself. "I hope one day you can see that what I did and do is always for you and your [brother] to see what you deserve," she added in her message.
Johnathon Schaech's comments about their wedding 'bothered' Jana Kramer
Prior to marrying Mike Caussin, Jana Kramer had a very brief union with actor Johnathon Schaech, who audiences may recognize from the 1996 Tom Hanks movie "That Thing You Do!" or for playing Jonah Hex in "Legends of Tomorrow."
The two were married for little more than a week in 2010, and Schaech brought their quick matrimony to the public's attention after he posted a snap from their wedding day on Twitter over a decade later. The picture showed Kramer in a white dress and veil, while he rocked a suit and tie and held a dog wearing a mini wedding dress.
"I had to explain this photo to my son today. I told him I've been married three times. But I got it right when I married his mother," he wrote, before tagging Kramer and adding, "We weren't meant but for this photo and friendship."
But Kramer wasn't exactly a fan of Schaech, mentioning their short marriage to denizens of the Twitterverse, admitting on "Whine Down with Jana Kramer" that it "bothered" her. She said the two are cool now, but said the post "rubbed [her] wrong" — so much so that when he tweeted that it was "a horrible day and nothing was real about it," she shot him a text. "And I'm like, can you be nice and not say mean things about me on Twitter?" she shared on the podcast.
Jana Kramer's first husband went to prison for attempting to kill her
Jana Kramer has bravely opened up about surviving domestic abuse at the hands of her first husband, Michael Gambino, who went to jail for trying to kill her in 2005. Kramer first spoke out in 2016, telling People that they met when she was 19 years old and Gambino was 17 years her senior. After they got together, his abuse became so bad that she was forced to hide from him in bushes and would often spend nights in her car.
"My self-confidence went down each time he was abusive," she shared with the publication, recalling a particularly violent incident in 2005 when he left her unconscious outside their house. "I remember praying that night, 'Please, just take me away, I don't want to be here anymore'," she said. Gambino was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison.
Kramer also recounted that horrific night on "Nightline" in October 2016, explaining that she prayed to her grandfather, who had died, and begged him to save her or "take [her] from this place" to where he was. She said she saw her funeral and her life flash before her eyes and recalled the last thing she remembered was calling her mother's name.
"The verbal and the mental abuse they give you is almost more painful than the physical because it tears you down even more with the words," Kramer said (via Us Weekly). Gambino died by suicide in 2012.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The scare Jana Kramer experienced at a park
Jana Kramer shared how one scary moment at a playground made her and then-husband Mike Caussin think their daughter, Jolie, could have been abducted. In a very candid Instagram confession in January 2021, the singer said it happened after Jolie started playing with another little girl she didn't know.
"I watch my kids like hawks but Jolie was running around in the play house so it was hard at times to see her," she wrote, noting she took her eyes off her daughter for a split second to play with Jace. "The next minute a lady walked up to me and said 'Your daughter just got into a white SUV.'"
Kramer recalled her heart sinking as she "immediately ran" to the parking lot to find Jolie and the other little girl at the back of a vehicle belonging to the girl's mom. "I clung to Jolie so quick and caught my breath and tried to turn off all the 'what if's' going through my brain... It was an eye opening experience especially for someone like me who is super present. Literally in a blink of a second...that's how fast a kid could be taken," she wrote. "Thank God that's not what happened here and the little girl Jolie was with just wanted to see her mom."
Fortunately, everything was fine and Jolie was safe, though Kramer revealed how it prompted her to speak to her daughter about stranger danger and call the whole incident "the absolute scariest thing."
A former manager crossed the line with Jana Kramer
Jana Kramer shared her experiences with sexual misconduct following an inappropriate encounter early on in her career. Speaking to Yahoo! Life in 2017, Kramer recalled that she was 19 years old when a male manager in Los Angeles made an inappropriate advance by asking her, "Okay, I've done this for you. What are you going to do for me?"
"I remember in that moment being like, 'Oh, my God! I am going to have to sleep with this man in order to fulfill my dreams.' I ended up just bawling, crying, and having a panic attack, and he left," she recalled to the outlet, admitting it almost made her want to leave California altogether and head back home to Michigan.
When Kramer recounted the incident to her mother, her mother said, "Don't let a man try and take something away from you like that. Be the bigger person. Fight back." Thankfully, Kramer didn't give up, and her decision to stay and hire a new manager helped give her the career she has today.
Jana Kramer 'needed to create a new space' after her divorce
Jana Kramer evidently didn't want any reminders of her relationship with Mike Caussin in the home they once shared together with their children. In the wake of her divorce filing in April 2021, the star confessed that she was ready to clear out her home of things that reminded her of him — and she used something once very personal to pay for it all.
On a June 2021 episode of "Whine Down," Kramer shared that she'd actually sold the wedding ring she wore as a sign of her past love for Caussin and bought herself a "divorce present" with the money: a home makeover.
"I have redone pretty much my entire house," she told listeners, but admitted she "debated" doing it for a while before biting the bullet. "I was like, 'Honestly, what would make me happiest is to have new energy in the house,'" she continued, adding, "This was our house and we made memories here. I needed to create a new space that felt like me and felt like mine."
Dancing with the Stars allowed Jana Kramer to have 'flings and flirts'
In "The Good Fight: Wanting to Leave, Choosing to Stay, and the Powerful Practice for Loving Faithfully," Jane Kramer admitted to having what she described as "flings and flirts" while separated from Mike Caussin. She confessed her dalliances with other men went down while she was competing on "Dancing with the Stars" alongside pro Gleb Savchenko in 2016.
She wrote in the tell-all that she initially wasn't sure if she wanted to divulge the information because she "never truly thought [she] did anything wrong," before editing herself: "Correction. I knew it was wrong; I just didn't want to be the bad guy. I justified my actions in my mind just as I suppose Mike had done all along too." Kramer also said she believed her time away from Caussin while she competed on the ABC competition show only "prolonged [their] suffering" in their marriage and "delayed [the] healing."
When asked to divulge more about who she had "flings" with, Kramer told E! News in January 2021 she would never reveal their names because there are "other people involved." She added, "Some people don't want to be as open and it would be wrong of me to name names when I don't think that's fair. Just because I'm open doesn't mean that I have to pull other people out into the openness."
Jana Kramer said she 'wasn't healthy enough' to be in a relationship with Brantley Gilbert
Jana Kramer made a pretty heartbreaking statement about her past romance with Brantley Gilbert. As some fans may remember, the twosome were so serious they got engaged in January 2013 after meeting the year earlier at the CMT Awards (via CBS News). Kramer opened up about their relationship during an April 2020 episode of "Whine Down with Jana Kramer."
When chatting about "the one ex to text" with Mike Caussin, she shared what she'd say to Gilbert: "I'm really sorry for the person that I was and the way that I wasn't healthy enough to be in that relationship." The "I Got The Boy" singer added that she knew she "wasn't the best version of [herself]" back then and said she'd "always have a little bit of regret [she] didn't handle things better."
For his part, Gilbert had nothing but nice things to say about Kramer when he stopped by 100.7 The Wolf (via The Boot) in 2014. In addition to calling her "one of the most genuine people" he knows, he said, "I love her to death. I care about her. She's going to make somebody a wonderful, wonderful wife, and a wonderful, wonderful mother. But between she and I, the situation does exist where it just didn't work." He also noted that "some things happened" between the two before they split.