Kelsea Ballerini and Morgan Evans announced their split last August after nearly five years of marriage, and they’ve been on a dramatic rollercoaster ride ever since.
The country stars married in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in 2017 after 21 months of dating, and they finalized their divorce in November 2022.
“Friends, I’ve always tried my best to share my life with you guys in a real and vulnerable way, while protecting layers of my personal life as they unfold,” Ballerini, 29, wrote on her Instagram Stories at the time. “It’s public knowledge now, so I wanted you to hear directly from me that I’m getting a divorce.”
She continued, “This deeply difficult decision is the result of a journey of love, growth and effort that has finally come to an end. It’s hard to find the words here…but I’m extremely grateful for the years of marriage to Morgan and hopeful for the seasons to come. With very active schedules coming up, please remember that we are both fragile, actively healing and showing our best as we can.
Evans, 37, also released a statement implying it wasn’t his decision to get a divorce.
“I am very sad to confirm that Kelsea and I are separating after almost 5 years of marriage. I wish it were different, but unfortunately it isn’t,” he wrote.
Shortly after they announced their split, the Australian singer released breakup track “Over for You.”
“‘Over for You’ is how I sing about my feelings. This song is the most personal thing I’ve ever written and the most personal thing I’ve ever shared,” Evans said in a statement at the time.
He has also opened up about the song on the Bobby Bones Show podcast and said it “felt good” to release the song.
“Just be honest and don’t try to cover things up,” he said.
“To have been through a situation like that and to see that it helps other people to go through that kind of situation, yeah, that’s really a big thing,” he explained, adding that “vulnerability and personal writing are actually what people do best affects most.”
Ballerini then released a short film and six of her own breakup songs on Valentine’s Day entitled “Rolling Up the Welcome Mat.”
“Here is my healing journey. Here is my heart Here’s my truth. I’ve never been so open, I’ve never been so brave and I’ve never been so proud of my art,” she explained on Instagram at the time. “So with love and respect I roll up the welcome mat. Six-song story and short film are available now. Happy Valentines Day.”
She said in a media release about the project: “My aim was to present the songs as honestly as possible. Most started with me and my guitar.
“The only way I’ve managed my life since I was 12 has been to write about it. Ironically, I started writing music because my parents got divorced; that was my therapy. ‘Rolling Up the Welcome Mat’ was my path I processed everything. That’s how I took my feelings out of my body and my heart and put them into music, which is the purest way I could have dealt with it,” she said.
Ballerini dating Outer Banks Actor Chase Stokes eventually addressed Evans’ song about her Call her daddy podcast and said, “Who you marry is not who you divorce. When he releases a song about being blind, he takes half the house he didn’t pay for.”
She added: “Hurt people, hurt people. I totally get that.”
The CMT Music Awards winner went on to say she was “angry” when Evans released “Over for You” weeks after the breakup and “felt really used in that moment.” She also spoke about how she thought about her marriage and key moments that she would have handled differently in hindsight.
“I wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t perfect. And so there were definitely moments that I look back on where I’m like, ‘Oh, I should have done it differently’ or ‘I could have done it’ came up here. I could have taken the flight this time,'” Ballerini said.
“And on the breakup, I finally shared the thing with him and was just like, ‘I need to own the last few years … I think I checked out a long time ago and I need to let you know that.'”
Evans was quick to address those comments, taking to Twitter to vent.
“It’s really sad for me to see this person, who I’ve spent so much of my life with and loved with all my heart, saying things that aren’t true and hiding what really happened,” he tweeted 21st of February.
“She knows I’m not the type to talk publicly about these things. If that’s what she needs to heal, I hope it helps mean. Don’t be mean to Kelsea, don’t be mean to each other. Life is too short.”
But apparently Evans has changed his mind about sharing his personal life with the world and announced a new documentary about his breakup song on Tuesday.
The five 10-minute episodes will follow him and his relationship to the song. It will also chronicle his travels back to his native Australia and the moment he debuted “Over for You” at the CMC Rocks QLD festival in front of 25,000 fans.
