Kelsea Ballerini says divorce should not be ‘glamorized’ 3 years after her marriage ended
Kelsea Ballerini doesn't believe in glamorizing divorce.
Ballerini, who released "Rolling Up The Welcome Mat" to chronicle her divorce from country singer Morgan Evans, clarified that she isn't the "poster child for divorce." After releasing the album, the 31-year-old musician found that fans connected with her story.
"I remember being like, 'Oh, man, I’m terrified,'" Ballerini told Elle magazine of the night before the album's release in 2023. "I went to sleep, and the next morning, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s OK. People are finding this and connecting with this.’ But it was definitely a scary feeling."
Now, the CMA award-winner has fans showing up to her concerts with signs that read "Just got a divorce."
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"I try to never celebrate it until I know if it’s a good thing. I don’t ever want to be a poster child for divorce," she told the outlet. "It’s been three years now. It’s simply not in the forefront of my life anymore."
"But I always make sure when these women come up to me, my first reaction is never, ‘Oh my God, congratulations!’ It’s like, ‘Are you OK?’ Because just like it needs to be destigmatized, I also don’t think it should be celebrated or glamorized," Ballerini said.
Ballerini and Evans wed in 2017. After nearly five years of marriage, the two announced their divorce in 2022 on Instagram. Ballerini and Evans originally met in 2016 while hosting the CMC Music Awards in Australia.
"I’ve always tried to share my life with you in a real and vulnerable way, while also protecting layers of my personal life as they unfold," Ballerini wrote at the time. "This is now public record so I wanted you to hear from me directly that I am going through a divorce."
Evans wrote in his own statement, "I am very sad to confirm that after almost 5 years of marriage, Kelsea and I are parting ways. I wish it were otherwise but sadly it is not."
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Ballerini noted to Elle that her life is now "unrecognizable from how it was a couple of years ago, and thank God."
The country superstar has been dating "Outer Banks" actor Chase Stokes since January 2023.
The two seem to be going strong as they recently moved in together, according to People magazine. Stokes revealed they never go longer than three weeks without seeing each other.
"If we need to make the effort to show up when one's across the country, we do it," he told the outlet. "The amount of effort that we put into our careers, we should be doubling that in our personal lives. It's not always easy, and it's not always convenient, but having a big, beautiful life didn't come from convenience or ease."
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Ballerini has released new music since putting her heartbreak out for the world to hear. However, she still finds it easy to write about the "growing pains" of life.
"I’ve always gravitated toward writing about the unsteadiness in life, whether that’s a version of heartbreak or just growing pains. I love writing about growing up and the uncomfortable nature of that. The hardest part for me is to write when I’m happy," she told Elle magazine.
"It’s so much easier, because songwriting is so therapeutic for me, to sit down when I’m down in the dumps about something rather than when I’m happy. Because when you’re happy, you want to go exist in your happiness, not sit down with your guitar. But I will say making ‘Patterns’ was truly reflective of the year and a half that I wrote it. So there is turmoil and growing pains in that, and there is happiness, but it’s not sugarcoated.
"Even ‘First Rodeo,’ which I think is the first love song that I wrote for ‘Patterns,’ is literally saying, ‘I fell off the horse. That was embarrassing. I felt like damaged goods. Oh my God, here you are. Can we take this slow because this is not where I saw my life going, but now I want to try this again?’ It’s an unconventional love song, and that’s what interests me, the nuance of it, not just ‘Friday night in your truck, let’s go to the bar.’"