Ballerini appeared on the 'Call Her Daddy' podcast, where she discussed her divorce from her fellow country star.
Kelsea Ballerini wasn't moved by ex-husband Morgan Evans' breakup song, "Over for You." On the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, the 29-year-old songstress opened up about the moment her ex released the track and questioned the timing.
"If I'm being honest, I felt like that was really opportunistic for him to put that out when he did when we were still going through the legalities of getting divorced," Ballerini told host Alex Cooper. "I felt really used in that moment. And again, his healing journey is his healing journey, I respect that. But publicly exploiting it feels a little nasty to me, before it's final."
Evans released the song in October, just two months after Ballerini filed to end their marriage.
In the song, Evans shares that he was blindsided by his then-wife's actions, with lyrics that Ballerini said angered her.
"So angry, so angry," she said of her reaction to the song. "I had a pretty good grasp on my grieving journey until that song came out and I was livid. I think that maybe there's a world that he was blindsided. I did not blindside him. Two things can be true at once, and I think like if he truly was blindsided, then where was he?"
But the "Mountain With a View" singer insists she has moved on and is no longer fazed by the song.
"Now we're like months past it," she said. "We're moving on and I've taken the time to, like, actually sit in my feelings and go through that grieving process and take ownership of what I brought to the table too."
Last week, Ballerini released her six-song EP and short film, Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which tells her side of the story. For the singer, it's something that she wish she had done in August when she pulled the plug on her marriage.
"I wish I would have had it in August," she said. "I wish in August when I would have been like, 'I'm blowing up my life, I'm doing it.' That someone would have had those six songs that I could have listened to, to like go through the intricacies of the emotions of everything you think your life is going to look like, it's not."
Rolling Up the Welcome Mat details Ballerini's perspective on the road to divorce, including the singer sleeping on the couch, going out of her way to catch flights to see Evans (when he allegedly wouldn't in return) and even pulling herself together following a fight ahead of the CMT Awards.
"I was just putting examples in there," she said about the revealing lyrics that dispute her ex's claims. "We were in therapy for years. Like remember that time that I slept on the couch before the CMA Awards and then we, like, walked the carpet with bags under our eyes 'cause we had been fighting? I was just like again, if that is your narrative, if that's true to you, where were you?"
Ahead of the interview, Evans took to social media to react to a teaser clip of the podcast and the EP.
"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," Evans tweeted. "She knows I'm not the type of guy to speak on those things publicly. If this is what she needs to heal, I hope it helps."
He continued, "All I ask is that if you're on my pages, please don't be mean. Don't be mean to Kelsea, don't be mean to each other. Life's too short."
Ballerini and Evans tied the knot in 2017 following what she describes as a "whirlwind romance." her new interview, the "Leave Me Again" singer addressed alleged behavior from her ex that blindsided her.
"Who you marry is not who you divorce. As he's putting out a song about being blindsided, he's taking half the house that he didn't pay for. Hurt people, hurt people," she claimed. "I totally get that. And I have grace, I really do, because I do know that he was hurt and is hurt, but how was I married to this person for so long and I had no idea that that bit of character was tucked within that human being? That's what's hard for me."
RELATED CONTENT:
