1999–present
Latest News: Ella Langley Co-Leads CMA Nominations with 6
Newcomer Ella Langley finds herself among country music royalty with her CMA Awards nomination for Female Vocalist of the Year. The trophy is just one of six that could go to Langley, 26, at the annual showcase event on November 19 in Nashville, Tennessee. She tied Lainey Wilson and Megan Moroney for the most nominations of any artist.
Langley’s competition for Female Vocalist is among the most vaunted of any category. It includes the three-time defending winner in Wilson, a seven-time recipient in Miranda Lambert, as well as Kelsea Ballerini and Moroney.
Langley is also up for New Artist of the Year; Song of the Year, Single of the Year, and Music Video of the Year for “You Look Like You Love Me,” her duet with Riley Green; and Musical Event of the Year.
The announcement came weeks after the singer announced a break from touring on August 11, citing her health. “I’ve been fighting sickness and feeling more run down than ever. After a lot of thought, I’ve made the hard decision to take a couple of weeks to rest and focus on my health—mind, body, and heart,” Langley shared in an Instagram post.
However, Langley performed at the NASCAR Cup Series race on September 7 in Madison, Illinois, and appears set to rejoin Morgan Wallen for his ongoing I’m the Problem Tour in the run-up to the CMAs.
Who Is Ella Langley?
Country singer Ella Langley is known for her debut album Hungover and the hit single “You Look Like You Love Me” with singer Riley Green. The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and won Musical Event of the Year at the 2024 CMA Awards. Originally from Alabama, Langley dropped out of college at age 20 and moved to Tennessee to pursue a full-time music career. After her song “If You Have To” went viral on TikTok, she debuted at the Grand Ole Opry in 2023 and signed her first record deal. Langley is now one of the genre’s top young stars and was named New Female Artist of the Year as part of the 2025 ACM Awards. She is now competing for six CMA Awards, including Female Vocalist of the Year, at the 2025 ceremony.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Elizabeth Camille Langley
BORN: May 3, 1999
BIRTHPLACE: Hope Hull, Alabama
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Taurus
Early Life
Elizabeth Camille Langley, best known as Ella Langley, was born on May 3, 1999, in Hope Hull, Alabama, a rural suburb of Montgomery.
Langley’s grandfather inspired her love of music at an early age. He played multiple instruments and invited neighbors to music sessions. After his death, Langley received his guitar and taught herself to play her first song, “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley.
Through her father, Jason, and mother, whose name hasn’t been made public, Langley listened to classic country artists such as Merle Haggard and rock groups including Pearl Jam and the Grateful Dead. She ultimately gravitated toward songwriting artists such as Willie Nelson and Stevie Nicks. Among her more contemporary influences are Miranda Lambert and Lainey Wilson.
Langley, who also has a younger sister and two brothers, grew up on a farm with a large cattle pasture and used the open space to her advantage. She often climbed to the loft of a barn and sang for the roughly 200 cows below, pretending they were her audience. When she wasn’t performing for the animals, Langley—nicknamed “Ella Bee” by her mother—sang at church services.
A self-described tomboy, Langley said she spent much of her childhood trying to prove she was as tough and fearless as her brothers. She kept this independent spirit, which inspired her to write the song “One of the Guys.” “My band or anyone who knows me will tell you that sometimes I can seem more like a guy than a girl, but I think women can still be tough, direct and strong, without apologizing for who they are or how they think,” she told Pro Country.
Langley attended the Hooper Academy, where she performed in the school talent show and held jam sessions with her history teacher. She also played at weddings, bars, and restaurants in her free time. Langley carried that dedication to music into adulthood.
Music Career
After high school, Langley attended Auburn University in her home state for two years and studied forestry. However, she began failing classes because her focus primarily remained on music. Langley spent much of her free time playing covers at bars and restaurants. “That was a massive education, because you learn so much playing covers for four hours, multiple nights a week, trying to make people give a s––. But I reached the point where I was like, ‘Nothing’s going to happen if I stay here,’” she explained to Billboard.
So, Langley dropped out and relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2019 in an effort to build her career. Already comfortable composing melodies, the singer began to focus on improving her lyrical songwriting. “I was really patient with wanting to learn. My mom would always say, ‘This is your college. This is your schooling to move there.’ And I wasn’t in this massive hurry to move here and just watch it explode,” she told Audacy Music. “There’s so many things to learn and being here, just around people that are doing it every single day… it definitely puts a fire under your butt when you’re watching all these people work so hard.”
Although it took a little while, Langley eventually caught her big break through TikTok. Using her social media page to share music samples and personal updates, she released a portion of her song “If You Have To” filmed inside a car in September 2021. The clip quickly went viral, and Langley officially released the track a few weeks later. With her first publishing deal also secured, Langley was about to reach new heights.
Top Songs: “You Look Like You Love Me” and More
Riding the momentum of her internet fame, Langley began touring as an opener for country singer Randy Houser in early 2022 and continued to release new music. The 2022 single “Country Boy’s Dream Girl” quickly became her most popular track to that point and now has more than 81 million streams on Spotify.
Even greater exposure arrived in February 2023 when she debuted at the famed Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. A week later, she signed her first major record deal with Sony Music Nashville and Columbia Records.
Langley released her first EP, Excuse the Mess, in May 2023 and her first studio album, Hungover, in August 2024. The latter contained the single “You Look Like You Love Me,” a duet featuring her new touring partner Riley Green. The track initially started as a joke after songwriter Aaron Raitiere innocently asked about the singer’s dating life. “At the time, I was like, ‘You know, Aaron, I get [to] the point where they look like they love me... I just gotta get out of there.’ Because I was emotionally unstable at the time,” Langley said. “And we thought it was funny enough [that we said] ‘What if we wrote it kind of nice?’ And that’s how it came out.”
There was nothing funny about its massive appeal. Langley and Green performed the song during a November 2024 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, further increasing its popularity. That same month, the song won Musical Event of the Year at the CMA Awards. Soon after in December, “You Look Like You Love Me” reached the top of the Billboard Country Airplay Chart, giving Langley her first No. 1 song and snapping a 51-week streak of male artists holding the lead spot.
The duet is one of only two Langley tracks to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 (peaking at No. 30), along with “Weren’t for the Wind” (peaking at No. 39) off the 2025 deluxe re-release of her Hungover album.
Now an undeniable rising star in the genre, Langley received eight nominations across six categories for the 2025 ACM Awards—more than any other performer. At the May awards ceremony, she won five trophies total, including for Visual Media of the Year for “You Look Like You Love Me” (as an artist and director) as well as New Female Artist of the Year.
In September 2025, Langley earned six nominations, including New Artist of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year, for the upcoming CMA Awards. She will enter the awards show as one of the most nominated musicians of the night; Lainey Wilson and Megan Moroney also garnered six nods.
New Album and 2025 Tour
Langley is currently working on her sophomore album and said in March 2025 she already has a title picked out. However, she doesn’t know when the project will be completed. “I’m not in a rush. I plan on doing this for the rest of my life, so I have time,” she said.
The singer completed her Still Hungover headlining tour in April and headed right back on the road with Green on their 2025 Damn Country Music Tour. Langley also serves as a guest on Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem Tour. In August 2025, Langley announced she would take a break from performing to prioritize her health. She was back on the stage to perform at a NASCAR race in early September.
Personal Life
Langley has offered very few details about her dating life and isn’t publicly known to be in a relationship.
Her collaborative chemistry with touring partner Green created rumors of a real romance, but both singers have denied the speculation. “We’re just good friends,” Langley told Taste of Country in September 2024.
In March 2025, Langley sparked more gossip about a potential engagement when fans spotted a large diamond ring in a reel uploaded to Instagram. The accessory ended up being part of the video for her track “Weren’t for the Wind.” Following the conjecture, Langley posted a separate clip in which she asserted she was “married to my job.”
When she isn’t writing music, Langley journals and creates manifestation boards—visual collections of drawings, photos, and other materials—representing the goals she hopes to achieve. “I have so many plans. I’ve always been like this. I have so many things spinning in my brain,” she told Grammy.com.
Langley is a dog mom to her two pups, Crue and Bee, and a founding board member of Pawsitive Rescue Division, a nonprofit rescue dedicated to placing pets in forever homes.
Quotes
- I just have the imagination of a 10-year-old, and that helps, for sure, with songwriting.
- I’m here to play. I’m here to show everybody what I’ve been working so hard on, and what my band and my team have been working hard on. And I think they respect that. They respect the honesty and the grind that I have.
- All my songs are written from a true place. I have felt every one of these emotions—the good, the bad, the rowdy, the drinking—everything. Those are all real things and real stories in my life.
- If people ask me advice, I’m like go do that. Go play. Go play all the shows, go play covers, go play your own stuff. Just do it. Just go out there and do it.
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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.
