ET spoke to Pearce at the 50th annual CMA Fest Thursday.
Carly Pearce is feeling good following her breakup with Riley King.
Pearce, 33, and King, 27, called it quits after two years of dating, earlier this month. The former couple first debuted their relationship in 2021, just over a year after Pearce filed for divorce from country singer Michael Ray, 35.
"Yes, things didn’t work out," King told Page Six on Wednesday. "Carly and I have parted ways and I wish her nothing but the best in both her career and personal life."
Pearce did not announce the breakup publicly, but her and King's Instagram accounts were both wiped of photos of the couple together.
ET's Rachel Smith spoke to the "What He Didn't Do" singer at the 50th annual CMA Fest Thursday, where she touched on their split, her new single and teased some CMA Fest surprises.
"I feel really good," Pearce said. "I feel people date to figure out if you're gonna go the distance, and sometimes, you don't, and I think that's as simple as this is. And I am just in such a good place in my life, and I have such good friends and such good family, and such amazing music coming, that I feel really full."
She added, "And really happy."
As for the new music she's talking about, her new single with Chris Stapleton couldn't come at a more perfect time. Titled, "We Don’t Fight Anymore," Pearce revealed that she slid into his wife, Morgan's DMs to make the music magic happen!
"Well, I wrote this song about a year ago and Chris did not write it with me, but when I wrote it -- I felt like I've always been somebody that wanted to push boundaries as far as the subject matter of my music, in the way that I feel like my heroes did, and this song just really capitalizes on that really uncomfortable subject of indifference in a relationship, and when I heard the demo I heard his voice, so I just DM'd his wife," Pearce shared.
"Thank you, Morgan Stapleton!" she quipped before sharing the details of her message to Morgan. "I said, 'Hi Morgan, this is so awkward, but this is the only way this feels authentic,' cause I knew Morgan and Morgan knows I'm a fan of hers, and I said I have this song for Chris, can I just send it to you?'"
Pearce continued, "And she responded she was like, 'Yes, call me,' and so I called her and she said, 'Look, he gets asked to do a lot of stuff, if he doesn't connect to it, can we be honest?' and I said, 'Yes,' and the rest is kind of, in my opinion, gonna be history."
Per Pearce, Stapleton "did more" with the song than she even thought possible.
"He went for it," she teased of the song, out June 16.
When it comes to what she feels fans will take from the emotional track, Pearce said, "I felt like it was something that's either going to save a lot of relationships or bring to the surface that you need to leave a relationship. And I think, that's something, again, I just want to stand for things that make people feel, whether that's whatever human emotion that is."
She added, "But I think that this is something that, probably a lot more people if they were honest behind the highlight reel of Instagram, would probably tell you they feel."
Pearce also has a big CMA performance in the works. While she wouldn't reveal her surprise guest, making her way to the "big stage" has been a dream of the singer's since she first attended CMA Fest when she was just nine years old.
"I mean, I knew as a 9-year-old that I wanted to do this, so to be here now all these years later -- and honestly, I moved to Nashville 13 years ago, and have participated in CMA Fest every year, but it feels like it took me 13 years to get to the big stage."
CMA Fest, hosted by Dierks Bentley, Elle King, and Lainey Wilson, will air July 19 on ABC.
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