Kelsea Ballerini Says There Was Nothing ‘Volatile’ About Her Divorce: ‘It Just Didn’t Work’
Kelsea Ballerini typically avoids conflict, and she admits that tendency made it more difficult to decide to get divorced — especially since there was no big falling out or betrayal in her marriage to fellow country artist Morgan Evans.
Things simply just weren't working between them, Ballerini explains in a new interview with CBS Mornings.
"I'm a peacemaker. We've talked about this before. I'm a people pleaser," the singer says. "So to do something that goes against those two things is really difficult and I'm really proud of myself."
Ballerini says that there was no one, big, dramatic reason why she chose to end her marriage, and in a way, that poses a challenge, too.
"It's also rough, like — it's not chaotic," she elaborates. "It's not volatile. It just ... it just didn't work. And that sometimes is 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.'"
Ballerini announced her divorce in late August, and the following month, she released her newest album, Subject to Change. The singer has previously spoken about the odd disconnect she felt between grieving the loss of her marriage and promoting a body of work that she was so excited to release, and how she's learned that it's possible to have two opposite feelings at the same time.
She's had to struggle against feelings of guilt and failure about the dissolution of her relationship, but Ballerini says she's keeping perspective by focusing on handling her divorce in a way that will make her future self proud.
"It's easy to shame yourself, and it's easy to wanna hide," she continues. "I just wanna be proud of myself in 10 years on this season of my life. This is not just a heavy time in my life — this is also a celebratory time in my life. I don't wanna shame that, because that's important to feel."