Celebrity Exes
Who Is Zac Brown’s Ex Wife? All About Kelly Yazdi’s Legal Drama With the Country Singer
Now that Zac Brown has announced his engagement to jewelry designer Kendra Scott, his ex-wife is speaking out.
Kelly Yazdi, who was briefly married to the 47-year-old country singer in 2023, hasn’t shied away from talking about Brown since their divorce. For over a year, the two have been locked in a legal battle, and Yazdi has been sharing her side of the story on social media since it started.
Just days after People reported on the country singer’s latest relationship update, his ex responded with a series of photos, which she called “Rinse and Repeat.” Set to Taylor Swift’s “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived,” Yazdi placed images of the new couple next to similar-looking ones of herself and Brown.
“Everyday I wake up to some carefully crafted PR story highlighting the ‘perfect love story,’ yet I’m still being buried in legal fees and told that if I even try to tell my side of the story, that somehow I’m in the wrong,” she wrote in the caption.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the drama, you may be wondering who Brown’s ex is, and what exactly went down between them. We did a deep dive into their history, so keep reading for everything we know.
Who Is Kelly Yazdi?
Yazdi describes herself as “a dynamic force in adventure, empowerment, and authentic living.” The 34-year-old, who holds world records in big-game bowhunting and spearfishing, founded a company called Ride Wild, which hosts events for women in powersports and outdoor enthusiasts.
Like her ex-husband, Yazdi’s no stranger to the entertainment industry, either. The Minnesota native is also an actress, stuntwoman, and model, and her credits include the J.P. Getty Museum’s documentary Herb Ritts: L.A. Style and an episode of Hawaii Five-O.
How did Zac Brown and Kelly Yazdi meet?
The former couple kept the early stages of their relationship out of the spotlight, so not much is known about how they met.
People reported that Yazdi joined the Zac Brown Band on their 2022 tour. That July, she was first spotted celebrating the singer’s birthday in an Instagram video. According to what appears to be her LinkedIn account, Yazdi started working at the Zac Brown Collective the same month. Her first title was Social Media Manager, and she was promoted to Executive Vice President in February 2023.
Yazdi has confirmed that they got engaged in May 2022. The country star proposed on a Hawaii trip.
How long were Zac Brown and Kelly Yazdi together?
Though we don’t know when exactly they first got together, Yazdi recently posted a broad relationship timeline on her Instagram account. She says they met in 2021. After about a year of being engaged, she and Brown secretly tied the knot in August 2023, TMZ reported. Four months later, they were separating.
“We are in the process of divorce. Our mutual respect for one another remains. We wish each other the best and will always appreciate our time together. As we navigate this personal matter, we simply request privacy during this time,” their joint December 2023 statement said.
Why did Zac Brown and Kelly Yazdi divorce?
The couple hasn’t revealed the exact reason behind the end of their relationship, but it only took a few months for the two to become locked in a legal battle. After their split, Yazdi says she was terminated from her position at Brown’s company in February 2024. She accepted Brown’s service of the divorce petition that same month.
TMZ was first to report that Brown took his ex-wife to court in May 2024. Claiming Yazdi tarnished his public image through an Instagram post, the musician filed a temporary restraining order against her and also demanded she take the post down. (It was later rejected by the court.) Brown said that it broke a confidentiality agreement she had signed, according to court documents obtained by NBC.
“I took the steps necessary to enforce an agreement between us to maintain personal and business affairs in confidence and to protect my family from online harassment and speculation,” he told the outlet, adding that his “only hope is for us to keep private matters private and to move forward with the mutual respect we had agreed to show one another when we parted ways.”
Though the court document didn’t specify which post Brown was referring to, Yazdi added a poem she wrote on Instagram to their relationship timeline, which you can read below.
View this post on Instagram
“No one — not even Zac Brown with all of his money, power, celebrity, and lawyers – may silence my right to freely express myself through art or, although I have to date declined to do so publicly, to speak about the circumstances of our pending divorce,” Yazdi said in a statement.
Brown took his ex back to court a few months later, alleging that she stole confidential documents, so Yazdi decided to countersue the Zac Brown Collective for its “Beautiful Drug Ft. Avicii Remix” music video.
“I’m doing this because they used the video footage from our private wedding party in Nashville for his music video for commercial gain, in the video they replaced me in the video with a lookalike model who’s seen behaving promiscuously, irresponsibly, unprofessionally, and recklessly,” she explained on social media. Brown’s team said the claims were “baseless and premised on a false narrative.”
Flashing forward to July 2025, Yazdi also took to TikTok to share that the court set the date for their jury trial. “Zac continues to keep me in this ‘divorce case masquerading as an employment lawsuit’ – by repeatedly suing me in order to keep me silent,” she wrote on Instagram. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to our ‘reunion,’ but I am looking forward to putting this all behind me.
She continued, “So to those of you asking ‘why has he been trying so hard to silence her’, get your popcorn ready because you’re going to find out on September 15th.”
Do Zac Brown and Kelly Yazdi have kids?
They exes don’t share any children, but Brown had five with his first wife, Shelly Brown. They wed in 2006 and parted ways in 2018.
