Kelsea Ballerini is getting very, very candid about matters of the heart.
The 29-year-old country star made her very first appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast and spoke extensively to host Alex Cooper about her split from her husband of almost five years, Morgan Evans, 37. She also spoke about her rumored new romance with Chase Stokes and how she first met him.
Questions she had during their marriage:
“I think these bigger thoughts started really showing up as I grew up. … ‘Cause I was like, ‘Of course I think I love you. Of course I want to marry you. Of course I want to have kids with you,’ and then we were married and then it was, like, time for kids and then I was like, ‘Oh no no no.’ … So I started overcompensating really, really early on and that happened till the very end.”
One huge issue for them and the first time she felt something really shift in their relationship:
“I don’t know if I want kids at all or not, but that was something we had talked about early on and that was something that I was changing on, you know, because he was ready. He was like, ‘I don’t want to be an old dad,’ is what he kept saying. And I was like, ‘I’m just not there yet.’
I took him out to dinner and I was like, ‘For my 30th birthday, I want to freeze my eggs,’ and it was not a good day. I think that was when I was like, ‘There’s a fundamental difference here that has happened and that has shifted and … it was like, ‘He wants something out of life and I’m not there.’”
On the decision to divorce and the last time she spoke with him:
“I was just really honest. I was like, ‘I’ve loved what this has brought in my life and I respect you and I respect me and because of that, I can no longer be in this marriage.’ … We cried, we hugged. It was sweet. And then something changed and I haven’t talked to him since,” she shared.
The breakup song Morgan released after the split which hinted he was blindsided:
“I was livid… I did not blindside him. I think that if he truly was blindsided, then where was he?”
On her relationship with Chase Stokes:
“It’s all really new to me. I’m tiptoeing, but I’m happy. It’s been a really beautiful reawakening.”
How they met and the first message she sent him:
“I slid into his DMs. I was just like…I’m not going to get on the apps. And he shoots [Outer Banks] in Charleston and my manager lives there. He put the bug in my ear. He’s like, ‘You know who’s really cute when you’re ready…’ and I’m like, ‘You’re so right!’ I’ve never seen the show but I knew of him. I followed him, he followed me and I swan dove right in.
His handle is @HiChaseStokes, so I said, ‘Hi, Chase Stokes.’”
