There was a time.
Photo: John Shearer/Getty Images for ACM
Outer Banks fans are used to treasure hunts, but are they hunting for context? Rumor has it that Chase Stokes and Kelsea Ballerini may have rekindled their romance. But don't believe the hype. Ballerini appeared solo at the CMAs on November 20, and Stokes got tangled up on Instagram Stories the next morning. “Don’t trust the media,” he wrote in screenshots obtained by TMZ. “I was blocked, I didn't do anything wrong. Sorry ❤️. I tried.” He changed the font (from modern to classic) for his next message, writing: “I feel sorry for those who believed in us. It is what it is. Onwards and upwards.”
How did we get to vague story posts? Stokes and Ballerini began dating in January 2023, when Ballerini was just two months away from marrying Morgan Evans and Stokes was still on the same TV show as his ex Madeline Cline. The couple announced their separation September. “These are two adults who gave it their all and tried everything they could to make it work but ultimately couldn’t,” sources said. People at that time. But then they were “spotted” by the same devil People holding hands in Croatia earlier this month. Apparently this is the “media” that Chase Stokes doesn’t want us to believe.
Ballerini, on the other hand, expressed her feelings in song. At the CMAs, she performed “I Sit in Parks,” her song expressing complex feelings about motherhood, where she is in life and where she thinks she will be now. Village version “I think about it all the time“, basically. Ballerini recently thanked her fans for supporting her through all this turmoil. “Thank you for accepting the less brilliant sides of me over the past few years,” she said on Concert in Nashville. “I know that I'm most fortunate to be able to feel all these very strong feelings and think, 'I need to put this into music or I'll burn out.' This is definitely a better survival strategy than social media.
