Kelsea Ballerini says she’s not sure she’d ever want to get married again after going through her divorce with ex Morgan Evans.
“Right now, I would say I don’t think I will get married again,” the “Heartfirst” country singer told Alex Cooper on her “Call Her Daddy” podcast Wednesday. “I love the idea, again, of partnership. I’m a relationship b—-, but I don’t know if I believe in the legality of it all anymore.”
She said she thinks being with someone “should be a daily choice.”
But she admitted her feelings are “subject to change” because she’s “fresh out of a brutal moment,” and “anytime I’ve said a hard no to something, I’ve come back later in my life and challenged it.”
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Kelsea Ballerini says she’s not sure if she’d ever want to get married again after her divorce. (Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images)
Ballerini and Evans got engaged in 2016 when she was 23 after just nine months of dating.
The “Half of My Hometown” singer said she had sworn she would never get married after watching her parents go through a messy divorce when she was a child.
“It was just not my thing,” she said. “I think it’s because I watched my parents really have a time with it. They had a nasty divorce. They still can’t really be in the same room.”
On her wedding day, she “just wanted everyone to have a nice time,” she told Cooper. “I didn’t want a wedding because I didn’t think, at the end of the day, I really wanted to get married.”
She said she did want to be married “in that moment, but fundamentally, I think, from the trauma I had as a kid, I didn’t. And then I think I told myself that I did,” adding that she takes “full responsibility” of that narrative.
Before they were married, she said, she felt “of course, I love you. Of course, I want to marry you. Of course, I want to have kids with you.”
Kelsea Ballerini discussed her marriage and divorce on the “Call Me Daddy” podcast. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
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But she said as she “grew up” during her marriage, those “bigger thoughts” of whether she had actually wanted to get married and if she was ready to have children began to manifest.
Ballerini also said she felt she “overcompensated” in their marriage by paying for most things and making it “one way” financially.
“I just did it all. … I didn’t ask him to meet me anywhere. I just did it,” she said, referring to paying for his flights, hotels and other things.
Prior to filing for divorce, she said, the couple went through years of therapy, and they had more than one separation and “many nights of sleeping on the couch.”
She remembered sleeping on the couch one night because of the “disconnect” in their marriage, thinking, “This is not what I want.”
Morgan Evans and Kelsea Ballerini married in 2017, and she filed for divorce last summer. (John Shearer)
Regarding sex, the singer said it’s been something that has “taken a lot of work” in her life.
“I grew up really, really, really religious, and I went to like a Church of Christ college and, like, if you have sex before marriage, you’re going to hell.”
That thought was both in her mind and body when she was in relationships, she explained.
“So, then I got married,” she said, after having one other relationship that was a negative sexual experience for her.
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“I don’t think I even understood what a good sexual relationship was, so I don’t think I had anything to compare it to,” she added.
Kelsea Ballerini said she never thought she wanted to get married before Morgan Evans proposed. (Taylor Hill)
One “fundamental difference” in their marriage was that he wanted to have kids immediately, and she wasn’t ready when they first married. “I still don’t know if I want to have kids at all now,” Ballerini, 29, said, adding that was when she realized their marriage was “over over.”
She said she realized she wasn’t willing to have a baby just to save their relationship.
Explaining that they haven’t spoken since they agreed to file for divorce, she said she was “so angry” when she first heard his “Blindsided” song about their relationship.
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“Maybe there was a world where he was blindsided. I did not blindside him,” she told Cooper.
She added that while they had a prenup, he still ended up with “half the house he didn’t pay for.” But Ballerini said she decided to give him the house over paying alimony.
“I just want out,” she said she told her lawyers.
Dating since her divorce has been “fun,” she said, admitting she’s in a relationship with “Outer Banks” actor Chase Stokes after she slid into his Instagram DMs following a suggestion from her manager.
“I think I’m finally an adult,” she said. “I have opinions, I have a career … I have aspirations and goals that are tied to no one. … And for me to share that with anyone is a gift, and I want to be with someone who feels the same about their life. And I want it to feel even, that middle ground I’m so bad at. I’m eager to find it.”
For his part, Evans took to social media to respond to Ballerini’s interview.
“It’s really sad for me to see this person who I spent so much of my life with and loved with all my heart, saying things that aren’t reality and that leave out what really happened,” he wrote.
“She knows I’m not the type of guy to speak on those things publicly,” he added. “If this is what she needs to heal, I hope it helps.”
Evans also sent a message to his followers, saying, “Please don’t be mean. Don’t be mean to Kelsea, don’t be mean to each other.
“Life’s too short.”
