Kelsea Ballerini is heaping praise on her boyfriend Chase Stokes for helping inspire her to write and record her new studio album, Patterns.
The country pop singer started dating the Outer Banks actor in early 2023 after she went into his DMs and ‘just swan dove right on in’ the previous December.
‘He’s been such a big, beautiful part of my life for almost two years now,’ Ballerini, 31, revealed to PEOPLE at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards on Tuesday in New York City.
‘I’m really proud of the art that he’s inspired,’ she explained. ‘And I’m really proud to be with someone who’s a truth-teller in his own art too. And to be aligned in that way and to share parts of our relationship and that kind of stuff, so openly and willingly, is really beautiful.’
The singer-songwriter’s fifth album, consisting of 15 new songs, is said to delve into such subject matter as love, vulnerability, and female friendships.
Kelsea Ballerini is heaping praise on her boyfriend Chase Stokes for helping inspire her to write and record her new studio album, Patterns; seen in April
Ballerini began the promotional push for Patterns over the summer, releasing the singles Cowboys Cry Too, a collaboration with Noah Kahan, and Sorry Mom.
One of the first songs written for the album, the Mascot, Tennessee native described Sorry Mom as a love letter to the growth of a mother and daughter into women.
She wanted to showcase this perspective through a duet with Noah Kahan, bringing in a male viewpoint to further enrich the song’s message.
She went on to share how the lyrics for Cowboys Cry Too celebrate the vulnerable side of men, particularly highlighting the idea that even ‘tough’ people like cowboys experience emotions and can cry.
The four-time Grammy Award nominee previously told the outlet about how her boyfriend helped calm her nerves ahead of her recent acting debut in the new ABC medical drama Doctor Odyssey.
‘I’ve always called acting his world, and so whenever I was asking him questions about this opportunity, I was like, ‘What about this in your world?’ And he was like, ‘Hey, it’s just a world. I’m a part of it and now you’re a part of it. It’s not my world,” she recalled. ‘By the end of the conversation, I was like, ‘Okay, so you’ll run the scene with me?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.”
Stokes began his career with a number of small roles in high-profile shows like Stranger Things (2016), Daytime Divas (2017), and Tell Me Your Secrets (2021).
His big breakthrough came from playing the main role of John B Routledge in the action-adventure teen drama series Outer Banks (2020-present) on Netflix.
He recently starred in the science fiction drama film Uglies (2024), which dropped on Netflix in mid-September.
The Annapolis, Maryland native started dating Ballerini in January 2023, but they waited three months to go public.
The country star had only just split from her first husband, Australian country singer Morgan Evans, in the summer of 2022, when she met Stokes a few months later. Their divorce would be finalized later in November that same year.
The singer-songwriter’s fifth album, consisting of 15 new songs, is said to delve into such subject matter as love, vulnerability, and female friendships
‘I’m really proud of the art that he’s inspired,’ she told PEOPLE this week. ‘And I’m really proud to be with someone who’s a truth-teller in his own art too. And to be aligned in that way and to share parts of our relationship and that kind of stuff, so openly and willingly, is really beautiful’
Ballerini began the promotional push for Patterns over the summer, releasing the singles Cowboys Cry Too, a collaboration with Noah Kahan, and Sorry Mom; seen in September
Ballerini started writing songs at age 13, learned to play guitar at age 14, and then moved to Nashville at age 15 to pursue a music career.
Early on in her life, Ballerini showed a penchant for songwriting, which later led to her signing a record deal with Black River Entertainment in 2014 when she was 20.
That would lead to the release to her debut studio album The First Time (2015) the following year, which go a boost from the first three singles: Love Me Like You Mean It, Dibs, and Peter Pan reaching number one on the Billboard Country Airplay chart.
Ultimately, her first album debuted at number 31 on the Billboard 200 and number four on the Top Country Albums.
Her sophomore effort, Unapologetically (2017), had all three of its singles: Legends, I Haie Love Songs, and Miss Me More, reach the top 40. In fact Legends went on to become Ballerini’s fourth number one on the Billboard Country Airplay chart.
The Mascot, Tennessee native would also have success with her albums Kelsea (2020) and Subject To Change (2022), and many of the singles that were used to help promote the respective drops.
Ballerini’s new studio album Patterns will be released on October 25.