Sometime in the year 2016, I learned the name of a new celebrity: Jana Kramer. Her face was plastered on the cover of Us Weekly with the headline, “MARRIED TO A SEX ADDICT.” Naturally, I was intrigued. Who is the sex addict? I wondered. And why should we care that Jana Kramer is married to them? And also, is sex addiction real?
While I have not gotten an answer to that last question, I have learned a lot about Kramer in the intervening six years. She is not an A-list star, but she has deftly worked her way to the top of the tabloid economy, providing an endless stream of content about her life in which at least some people are interested. How did this happen?
JANA’S MANY ACCOLADES
Jana Kramer was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan on December 2, 1983. In the mid-2000s, she went to Hollywood, where she booked a series of recurring roles on television shows like One Tree Hill, Friday Night Lights, 90210 (the reboot), and Entourage. In 2012, she left her job on One Tree Hill to pursue a career in pop-country music and released two albums: Jana Kramer and Thirty One. (This was after Adele released 19, 21, and 25, but before she released 30.) She was nominated for Choice Female Country Artist at the Teen Choice Awards in 2013 and 2014. Her semi-hit single “I Got The Boy” was written by Jamie Lynn Spears.
As her music career was taking off, Kramer met the man who would become her third husband on Twitter: former NFL player Mike Caussin. Their relationship would go on to be featured in approximately 28 different issues of Us Weekly and inspire a podcast: Whine Down With Jana Kramer and Michael Caussin.
DANCING WITH THE STARS AND DIVORCE
Kramer and Caussin’s union had some quirks from the start. Just two weeks after they started dating in 2014, she publicly accused him of cheating and unfollowed him on Twitter. But they soon reconciled, getting engaged on her birthday in 2014 and marrying in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2015. The wedding was featured, naturally, in Us Weekly. Kramer gave birth to a daughter, Jolie, in 2016, and a son, Jace, in 2018.
To get the full picture of what unfolded over the course of Kramer and Caussin’s marriage, you will need to dedicate several hours of your life to listening to their aforementioned podcast. If you don’t have time for that (no judgment), I recommend skimming their Us Weekly relationship timeline, which notes all the times Caussin cheated on Kramer or received suspicious text messages that Kramer discussed on the couple’s podcast. It was this saga that truly made Kramer a star. Fittingly, when her husband was in rehab for sex addiction in 2016, she was cast on season 23 of Dancing With The Stars. She came in fourth.
In 2020, Kramer and Caussin published a guidebook (?) about their relationship entitled The Good Fight: Wanting to Leave, Choosing to Stay, and the Powerful Practice for Loving Faithfully.
In 2021, Kramer announced the couple was getting divorced in an Instagram post with a gorgeous pale pink color scheme. “I’ll always encourage you to fight the good right,” she wrote, “but you can’t fight it alone.”
Shortly thereafter, Kramer shared that she was removing a tattoo on her arm that featured her wedding anniversary and Jolie’s birth date. Don’t worry: She got a new tattoo that says “joliejace” to replace it. She also has a tattoo on her wrist that says “11:11,” but that’s neither here nor there.
THE TIME SHE DATED KRISTIN CAVALLARI’S EX-HUSBAND JAY CUTLER
After Kramer announced her divorce, I worried about how she would continue to make the pages of her favorite tabloids. Silly me. It only took a few months before she was spotted “out on the town” with none other than Kristin Cavallari’s ex-husband Jay Cutler. Kramer and Cutler went on approximately four dates between September and October of 2021, and this was enough to spawn reams of articles in Us Weekly, Page Six, and People.
A source told People, “Jay and Jana had a lot they bonded over with how their divorces played out.” Another source told Page Six that Cutler was only dating Kramer to make Cavallari jealous. Us Weekly reported that Cutler and Kramer “definitely weren’t hiding” when they attended a comedy show in Greenville, South Carolina on September 14.
But by October, the show was over: People reported the fledgling couple had split. “They went on a few dates but in the end Jana is still single,” a source said. “They realized they're better off as friends than dating.”
NEW BOYFRIEND WITH NORMAL-SIZED PENIS
You may be happy to learn that Kramer has bounced back. Last month, she announced on Instagram that she is dating a 36-year-old personal trainer named Ian Schinelli. Here are Us Weekly’s “five things to know” about him. (No. 2: “He’s a proud girl dad.”)
Kramer took custody of the Whine Down podcast in her divorce, and she has recently shared more information about her new beau on it. “In the very beginning when I met him, I was like, ‘OK, he’s handsome. He’s got a body to die for. He’s a freaking Navy SEAL. He’s charming. He’s nice. He’s kind. He’s got a daughter. He’s a dad,’” she said, as dutifully reported by Page Six. “And I’m like, ‘I bet you he has a small penis.’ That’s it. Something has to be wrong with him.”
She later clarified that he doesn’t, actually. Phew.
GIVE IT UP FOR THE LORD — JANA GOT BAPTIZED
After her Navy SEAL boyfriend reveal, again I wondered, what’s next? But of course Kramer had a plan. On January 23, she announced on Instagram that she had gotten baptized at Crosspoint Church in Franklin, Tennessee, an event that was subsequently covered in People, Us Weekly, and Fox News. “In the name of Jesus there is healing,” she wrote on Instagram.
At this point, I will never not know about Jana Kramer and what she is doing. I look forward to finding out what’s next.
