The country musician featured her Hollywood boyfriend in one of her music videos—here’s everything to know about Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes’ romance.
“Love me like you mean it,” country-pop star Kelsea Ballerini crooned in her debut single of the same name back in 2015, and nearly a decade later, it seems like she found someone to do exactly that. The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter has called “Dibs” (get it?) on actor Chase Stokes, with the twosome making public appearances together everywhere from collegiate football games to award-show red carpets to the splashy premieres of Stokes’ hit TV series.
Ballerini gushed about dating a fellow “artist” during an interview on Sunday Today With Willie Geist: “I think the beautiful thing about being with an artist—in a different field but an artist—is that it also equates to being with a truth-teller. When I got into this relationship, I hadn’t put out Welcome Mat. I remember I sent that EP to him and I just said, ‘Hey, you’re going to ask eventually. So, I’m just going to go ahead and give this to you.’ He lifted that record up and supported it and stood side-stage the whole time. That takes someone who really celebrates truth-telling, and believes in the person that’s doing it.”
The music star has seemingly found her biggest fan in Stokes—from the beginnings of their courtship to their current status of their romance, here is everything to know about the couples’ relationship.
Who is Kelsea Ballerini’s boyfriend Chase Stokes?
Most recently, Kelsea Ballerini has been dating American actor Chase Stokes, best known for his lead role as John B. Routledge on the Netflix action-adventure drama Outer Banks, which wrapped up its fourth season on Nov. 7. (Stokes will reportedly return for a fifth and final season, expected to drop sometime in 2026.)
Prior to his breakout performance on Outer Banks, the 32-year-old star appeared on TV series like Stranger Things, Daytime Divas, The First and Tell Me Your Secrets; and movies like Between Waves and Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets. Stokes was one of the leads of the 2024 sci-fi flick Uglies opposite Joey King and will next be seen in 2025 titles including Nick Cassavetes’ Marked Men: Rule + Shaw and Steve Barnett’s Valiant One.
When did Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes start dating?
The couple first went public with their relationship in February 2023 and are currently still together nearly two years later. However, rumors of their relationship were circulating for weeks before that official confirmation, after Stokes posted an Instagram photo dump on January 13, 2023, that featured a snap of the actor canoodling at the College Football National Championship game with a mystery blonde. Chase quickly solved the mystery for everyone by tagging Ballerini in the photo.
By the next month, the singer was confirming that she was no longer single during a February 2023 appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and Stokes was gushing about his musical girlfriend while at the Season 3 premiere of Outer Banks, telling Entertainment Tonight: “I mean, she’s the best. I’m so excited for her and everything happening in her career right now.”
How did Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes meet?
While on “Call Her Daddy” in February 2023, Ballerini revealed that she met her future boyfriend Chase Stokes after sliding into his DMs back in December 2022. “Why not? I’ve never really dated. I don’t know how it works. I’m like, what? Let’s just put ourselves out there,” Kelsea shared on the podcast. “I’ve never seen [Outer Banks] but I just knew of him. So I followed him and he followed me and I just swung through right on it.” Her opening line was a simple one: “His handle is ‘@hichasestokes,’ and I said, ‘Hi, Chase Stokes.”
After making a connection over social media, the duo went to a sushi restaurant for their first date, Ballerini later disclosed in a TikTok video in August 2023. Captioned “happy weekend here’s a video i sent to my best friend before my first date with chase,” the sweet clip sees Ballerini showing off the spaghetti-strapped minidress and cowgirl boots she donned on the date, as well as a healthy dose of pre-date nerves. “I can do this. It’s just a date, you just go and you just eat food and you talk about things that you do,” she pep-talked herself in the vid. Thankfully, the dinner clearly went well!
What Kelsea Ballerini songs are about Chase Stokes?
It’s become quite customary for pop stars to write songs about their respective partners, and Ballerini is no exception. Since beginning her relationship with Chase Stokes in early 2023, the 31-year-old singer-songwriter has reportedly penned several songs inspired by their romance, including tracks from her 2024 album Patterns. “‘First Rodeo’ is the first love song I wrote for Chase,” Kelsea shared in an Oct. 25 episode of Today. “Really, it’s essentially the first song where it’s kind of like, ‘Okay, I feel a little fragile, I feel a little scared to open myself up to the capacity that I want to, but I love love, and I really love you.’” Stokes appeared alongside his famous girlfriend in the music video for “First Rodeo,” which was released on Oct. 16.
Another Ballerini track written for her actor beau is the ballad “How Much Do You Love Me?” “This song is the softest song on the album,” the performer announced at a Spotify listening party of the new album in October, per E! News. “I remember writing it downstairs on guitar and Chase was like ‘What’s that?’ And I was like, ‘This is a love song.’” As a whole, Ballerini called Patterns “the most love-filled record I’ve ever made,” adding at the listening party: “I think the presence of love in every song is at the forefront.”
Who was Kelsea Ballerini married to previously?
Prior to dating Chase Stokes, Ballerini was married to Australian country singer Morgan Evans from 2017 to 2022. She began dating the performer in March 2016 after they met as co-hosts of Australia’s Country Music Channel Awards.
On Christmas Day of that year, they became engaged—”This morning, 9 months and 13 days later, he got down on one knee in the kitchen while I was burning pancakes and asked me to marry him. Loving him has been the greatest gift of my life. And now I get to do it for life,” Ballerini announced the engagement on Instagram, per People. (The post has since been deleted from Kelsea’s page.) A year later, on Dec. 2, 2017, the couple wed in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and remained in the sunny country for their honeymoon.
However, in August 2022, Ballerini filed for divorce from Evans, with the split being finalized in November of that year.
Why did Kelsea Ballerini get divorced from her husband?
On August 29, 2022, Kelsea Ballerini filed for divorce from her then-husband Morgan Evans, citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the split. In a message posted to her Instagram Story, the star wrote: “This deeply difficult decision is the result of a journey of love, growth, and effort that ultimately has come to an end. It’s hard to find the words here … but I feel extremely grateful for the years of marriage to Morgan and hopeful for the next seasons.”
She elaborated further in an October 2022 appearance on CBS Mornings: “I think when there’s a big life decision like that, it’s not a sudden one. And there’s a lot that happens before that becomes public. So, I’m on my, like, active healing journey.” She said that things between the exes weren’t “volatile” at all, adding: “It just didn’t work and that sometimes is, like, a difficult narrative to get your head around when you’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh. This is a good person. And I’m a good person. And this is just no longer good anymore.’”
Who else did Chase Stokes date before Kelsea Ballerini?
Prior to his relationship with Ballerini, Chase Stokes dated his Outer Banks co-star Madelyn Cline, who plays his character John B’s love interest Sarah Cameron on the teen drama. The co-star couple went public with their relationship in June 2022 but split a year-and-a-half later in November 2021. But thankfully, they didn’t let any break-up awkwardness get in the way of their onscreen work or their behind-the-scenes friendship. “She’s one of my favorite people on planet Earth,” Chase gushed about Cline to Us Weekly in December 2021. “You know, it’s super awesome to work with somebody that you care about that much, and yeah, I’ll leave it at that.”
And before his relationship with Madelyn Cline, Stokes was reportedly in a long-term romance with a Florida-based woman named Xiomara Montalvo. Chase mentioned their relationship during an interview with The Strategist in May 2020: “I went through a breakup a little bit before quarantine, and it was with somebody I’d been with for almost 10 years.”
