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Latest News: Kelsea Ballerini to Perform at the 2024 CMA Awards
Kelsea Ballerini already crossed one item off her bucket list this November and might take care of another at the upcoming CMA Awards. Just two weeks after making her dramatic acting debut, Ballerini will be back in her wheelhouse on November 20 with a performance at the annual country music showcase. More importantly, she could win her first Female Vocalist of the Year award after six prior nominations. Lainey Wilson is the two-time reigning honoree.
During the ceremony, 31-year-old Ballerini will sing her duet “Cowboys Cry Too” with Noah Kahan, which reached the Top 20 of the Hot Country Songs chart earlier this year and is featured on her No. 1 country album Patterns. The collaboration is responsible for her second nomination, Musical Event of the Year, this year. Ballerini previously won the category in 2021 for her duet of “half of my hometown” with Kenny Chensey, which also earned her a trophy for Music Video of the Year.
The country singer is still feeling the adrenaline of her appearance on the ABC medical drama Doctor Odyssey, produced by American Horror Story and Monster creator Ryan Murphy. The singer played a “bridezilla” whose wedding took place on the titular cruise ship.
“When I was asked to be this role, first of all, I was so flattered. I never acted before. And it’s kind of been on my bucket list of can I enter into this world? I want to,” she told ABC’s On the Red Carpet. “And then I was asked to play this role, and it was such an honor because I’m such a Ryan Murphy fan!”
Who Is Kelsea Ballerini?
Grammy-nominated country singer Kelsea Ballerini is known for songs such as “Peter Pan,” “Love Me Like You Mean It,” and “Dibs.” Born and raised in the country hotbed of Tennessee, Ballerini moved to Nashville as a teenager hoping to begin a music career. She signed with the Black River Entertainment label at age 19 and achieved immediate success with her debut album, The First Time, in 2015. Her songs often contain personal lyrics and a mix of country and pop influences. Ballerini’s newest album, Patterns, released in October 2024, is the singer’s first to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Kelsea Nicole Ballerini
BORN: September 12, 1993
BIRTHPLACE: Mascot, Tennessee
SPOUSE: Morgan Evans (2017-2022)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo
Where Is Kelsea Ballerini From?
Kelsea Nicole Ballerini was born on September 12, 1993, in Mascot, Tennessee, and raised in nearby Knoxville. She is the only child of Ed Ballerini, who worked as a sales manager for a radio station in the city, and Carla Denham, a marketing professional in the publishing industry.
Ballerini described her childhood as “very Southern,” complete with “church on Sunday, a big family, [and] fried chicken.” She and her parents shared a rural plot of land with other family members, three cows and a goat.
Ballerini showed an interest in the arts from a young age. She took dance lessons for 10 years, earning the alliterative nickname “Ballerini the Ballerina,” and competed for a local hip-hop dance team. She also participated in her church’s choir and glee club. Kelsea wrote her first song as a gift to her mom, Carla, after forgetting to get her a present for Mother’s Day.
At age 12, Ballerini grappled with her parents’ divorce. She began suffering from bulimia around this time, also taking diet pills and working out excessively. She eventually sought help for her eating disorder at age 18 after passing out several times. “I think, for me, it was a source of control,” she said in a 2021 interview with People. “There are still days where I revert back to being that 12-year-old, and I have to catch myself and hold myself accountable to the work I’ve done.”
In the meantime, Ballerini had her first meeting with a Nashville record label at age 14, though she was rejected and bluntly told she sounded too similar to Taylor Swift. She and her mother moved to the city soon after. Kelsea graduated from Centennial High School in Franklin, Tennessee, and attended Lipscomb University starting in 2011.
Music Career
Although she grew up in the epicenter of country music, Ballerini initially found inspiration in primarily pop artists. Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Shania Twain, and Kelly Clarkson were among her early idols. She has called Clarkson her favorite artist of all time: “I think that she’s the best vocalist in the whole world, but my favorite is watching her interviews because she’s so 200 percent herself,” she told Billboard in 2016.
Hoping to make it big like Clarkson, Ballerini continued to pursue music at Lipscomb University, located in Nashville, and performed in variety shows. She agreed with her mother that she would drop out of college if she caught her big break in music. That finally came in 2013 when Black River Entertainment signed the 19-year-old and added her to its artist roster. Next came making her breakout first album.
Early Albums: The First Time and Unapologetically
Ballerini showed she would be a force starting with her debut studio record, The First Time, released in May 2015. She became the first female country artist to have her first three singles—“Love Me Like You Mean It,” “Dibs,” and “Peter Pan”—from an introductory album all reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. “Peter Pan” is also her only song to reach No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart to date.
Off the now-platinum-certified album’s success, Ballerini was named New Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2016 ACM Awards. She also embarked on her first headlining tour later that year and received a nomination for Best New Artist at the subsequent Grammy Awards, ultimately losing to Chance the Rapper.
Further success arrived with her second studio album, Unapologetically, in November 2017 and its singles “Miss Me More” and “Legends.” The latter became the singer’s fourth No. 1 Country Airplay hit, and the album peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, showcasing Ballerini’s crossover appeal.
More accolades poured in, as Ballerini received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album. Then, in April 2019, she officially became a member of the Grand Ole Opry—the youngest in the organization’s history at age 25—with Carrie Underwood overseeing her induction. The singer was now a bona fide country star.
Rolling Up the Welcome Mat
Other singers began lining up to work with Ballerini, who collaborated with Kenny Chesney and Halsey for her 2020 self-titled album Kelsea. She also released an accompanying album Ballerini, featuring alternate versions of songs from Kelsea, later that year. In 2021, Ballerini, a self-professed Jonas Brothers fan, fulfilled a personal dream by performing as an opener on the group’s Remember This Tour.
In September 2022, she released the album Subject to Change, spawning the popular single “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too).” The song about a close-knit female friendship was inspired by the 1991 Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon movie Thelma & Louise and the singer’s relationship with her pals amid her divorce from her ex-husband, Morgan Evans. “Sometimes, you put out a single because you think it’s the most radio-friendly, and sometimes you put out a single because it’s actually reflective of where you’re at in your life. And then sometimes, both things can be true,” she told Billboard.
Her breakup with Evans also served as the primary influence for her February 2023 EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which became Ballerini’s sixth record to reach the Top 20 on the Top Country Albums chart. Led by the single “Blindsided,” the project was nominated for Album of the Year at the CMA Awards and ACM Awards in 2023 and earned Ballerini her fourth Grammy nomination, for Best Country Album, the following year.
Ballerini has also stayed busy outside the studio. In 2022, she embarked on her multi-leg Heartfirst Tour and sold out her first headlining major arena show in Knoxville the following year. She also joined Chesney for his I Go Back 2023 Tour.
New Album: Patterns
In August 2024, Ballerini announced her new album, Patterns. The singer told the Associated Press the album offers an “accurate snapshot” of her life, which now includes her boyfriend, the actor Chase Stokes. “I think that people probably expect this really happy-go-lucky, love, mushy, gushy record from me. That’s not the case,” she said.
Patterns arrived in late October and is Ballerini’s first release to chart at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums. “Cowboys Cry Too,” her collaboration with indie singer Noah Kahan, became one of the album’s standout songs. It is nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 2025 Grammys and Musical Event of the Year at the 2024 CMA Awards, where Ballerini is again competing for Female Vocalist of the Year.
Days before Patterns’ debut, Ballerini announced an accompanying arena tour, the first of her career, spanning 30 cities from January through March 2025. “I genuinely can’t wait to be back on the road with you in 2025 and sing our lil hearts out together,” she wrote on Instagram.
Hit Songs
Ballerini’s songs have proven immensely popular on country music charts, even as her work largely hasn’t struck a chord in the mainstream. (Her biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 is “Peter Pan,” which peaked at No. 35.) Peaking in June 2015, “Love Me Like You Mean It” was the first of her seven singles that have become Top 10 Hot Country Songs. Those are:
- “Love Me Like You Mean It”
- “Peter Pan”
- “Dibs”
- “Legends”
- “Yeah Boy”
- “Miss Me More”
- “Hole in the Bottle”
Additionally, Ballerini is credited with five No. 1 Country Airplay songs. They include “Half of My Hometown,” a 2020 collaboration with Kenny Chesney, and the first four tracks listed above. When “Love Me Like You Mean It” reached the top in July 2015, Ballerini became the first female artist since Carrie Underwood to accomplish the feat with her debut single.
“The coolest thing about that is I remember when ‘Jesus, Take the Wheel’ came out and how impactful that was not only to country music but to me,” she told the Argus Leader, referencing Underwood’s 2005 hit. “To watch her career since then… makes me just want to keep going.”
TV Shows: The Voice and More
Ballerini has appeared as a guest on numerous TV shows, including the drama series Nashville in 2016, Songland in 2019, and the children’s staple Sesame Street in 2021. She also performed her singles “Blindsided” and “Penthouse” during a March 2023 episode of Saturday Night Live. Ballerini made her dramatic acting debut in November 2024 with a guest appearance in the TV medical drama Doctor Odyssey, starring Joshua Jackson and Don Johnson.
Ballerini hosted the CMT Music Awards from 2021 through 2024, emceeing three times with Kane Brown and once solo. She notably used the platform to show her support for the LGBTQ community, performing with drag queens from the reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2023. “I love performance, and I love self-expression, and I love inclusivity,” she told Entertainment Tonight.
Starting in spring 2025, the singer will serve as a celebrity coach for the NBC reality competition The Voice alongside John Legend, Michael Bublé, and Adam Levine.
Ballerini is also a published author. Her book, Feel Your Way Through: A Book of Poetry, released in 2021.
Boyfriend Chase Stokes and Ex-Husband
Ballerini is currently dating actor Chase Stokes, known for his role as John Booker Routledge, or simply John B., on the Netflix drama Outer Banks. Stokes first confirmed their relationship during a March 2023 appearance on Today.
The pair were first spotted together earlier that year in January. Ballerini revealed during an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast that she reached out to Stokes through an Instagram message. “I was ready to open back up [after my divorce]… I just felt, why not? I’ve never really dated; I don’t know how it works,” she said. “I’ve never seen his show, but I just knew of him, and I just swan dove right on in.”
Ballerini and Stokes made their red carpet debut at the CMT Music Awards in April 2023 and have attended multiple events together, most recently the 2024 Met Gala in New York City. They frequently post updates from their life together on social media, and the singer is adamant about maintaining normalcy despite their fame. “We have two days off together for the rest of the month, and we’ll be in Nashville with the dogs, grilling out, watching a show, and then we’ll both go back to these big worlds in these big lives,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in November 2024.
Before connecting with Stokes, Ballerini married Australian singer Morgan Evans. They wed in December 2017 but announced their separation in August 2022. The couple officially divorced that November.
Ballerini later said their relationship fractured over their opposing views on starting a family. “He was like, ‘I don’t want to be an old dad,’ is what he kept saying. And I was like, ‘I’m not there yet, and I can’t do that to save this and give you something that I’m not ready for,’” Ballerini said.
Net Worth
Celebrity Net Worth estimates Ballerini’s total fortune at around $6 million.
Quotes
- Songwriting is the most selfish part of what I do. I write songs for me. I do it to process my life—the good, the bad, the complex, the ugly, the pretty, all of it.
- I never want to get to a point where I’m dishonoring each stage that I get to be on, because I’m so, so happy that I get to be on it.
- I wish I could change a lot of things. But I can just change myself and the community around me. And I am making sure that my intentions are good and pure.
- I think we live in a culture where sadness is commendable, because it’s relatable. And happiness is something that people kind of don’t want to see anymore from people. And one thing that I’m personally working on is just, when I’m happy, doing it completely—like uninhibited—and when I’m sad, feeling that as well, the fullness of that.
- I think for several years of my career I was looking sideways instead of ahead, and I wish I could get those years back.
- [My 2023 CMT Music Awards performance] made me really wake up to just making sure that I’m aligned and that I can again be a good person first, good artist second.
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Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
