Singer Kelsea Ballerini first graced country radio with her poppy upbeat debut single,
"Love Me Like You Mean It."
Since then, Ballerini has remained humble, kind, and unapologetically herself.
Let's take a look at Kelsea Ballerini's stunning transformation into country music's sweetheart.
Kelsea Ballerini started writing songs when she was around 12 years old.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the Tennessee native revealed that music, songwriting in
particular, helped her through her parents' divorce.
Back then, she'd write songs about a boy she thought was cute.
It wasn't until Ballerini got older that she was able to explore those tough feelings,
which inspired the track "Secondhand Smoke" off her debut album, The First Time.
She explained:
"It's so many people's story, and a story that needs to be told because I know when
I was 12 and 13 when [the divorce] was happening, I felt super alone.
I want to be a voice of comfort for people going through that."
Pop star Kelly Clarkson unknowingly gave Kelsea Ballerini the push she needed to make the
move to Nashville.
As a teen, Ballerini attended a show on Clarkson's "Behind These Hazel Eyes" tour.
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Ballerini said any doubt she had of moving to Nashville washed
away when Clarkson appeared to wink at her through the concert's massive video screens.
"I grew up three hours east, so I would come to Nashville all the time."
Ballerini said:
"It was right when I thought I was gonna move to Nashville and be a singer, so I was super
into it, and I remember I was watching her sing one of these songs and I was having a
moment of like, that's exactly what I'm gonna do with my life, this is it...And I was like,
Kelly Clarkson just told me that I have to be an artist."
Kelsea Ballerini was only around 14 years old when she attended her first label meeting
in hopes of landing a record deal, but she left empty-handed after she was told she wasn't
original enough.
That was around the time that a young Taylor Swift was establishing herself as country-pop's
princess.
Like Swift, Ballerini was a spunky blonde singer-songwriter who played guitar.
Speaking to the Chicago Tribune, Ballerini said rejection was a tough pill to swallow.
"I walked in, and I had my big, pink, sparkly guitar case.
I could barely play guitar, but I played him a song that I had written, and (the label
guy) looked at me and said, 'There's already a Taylor Swift.
That slot's taken.'"
"And it broke my heart but it was such a good lesson, y'all, because it did sound like Taylor
Swift."
In retrospect, however, that label meeting turned out to be a valuable learning experience,
and one that propelled Ballerini forward.
She added:
"He was right.
It was the first time I realized I had to dig into myself, and figure out what I wanted
to say."
Still determined to make it in music, Ballerini enrolled at Lipscomb University to be close
to Music Row, the heart of Nashville's country music industry.
In an interview with CMT News, Ballerini said she made a deal with her mom that she'd attend
college, at least until her music career took off.
During her sophomore year, Ballerini signed to a local independent label, first for a
publishing deal and then for a record contract.
"I was like, 'Mom, remember?
You promised.'
And I was able to leave school and do it full time."
Ballerini held her end of the bargain and, at 19, said goodbye to college, but Ballerini
told CMT News she was grateful for the experience.
She shared,
"It was two years of my life of getting to be a normal college student."
Those early years in Nashville taught Ballerini another valuable lesson.
In a Chicago Tribune interview, she said,
"It took a long time for people to actually listen to me and actually take me seriously.
But I learned that if I walked into meetings and could sit down and actually communicate
my dreams and my vision…if I took myself seriously, then other people would, too."
Kelsea Ballerini was welcomed into the country music world with open arms, including by Taylor
Swift.
Not long after Ballerini's "Love Me" debut single hit radio airways, Swift tweeted, quote,
"Driving around with the @KelseaBallerini EP on repeat."
Country queen Shania Twain also praised the singer in an ET interview.
"I love Kelsea Ballerini.
She's humble, she's talented, she writes.
So, I admire that."
Ballerini revealed to Variety that she was surprised by the warm welcome.
"It's such a big part of my story, between Taylor posting about my EP when 'Love Me'
wasn't even top 40 yet, and then taking me out on stage, and then Shania posting about
me and bringing me out on stage...It's been a big deal to have people that have blazed
trails in music reach out to help me."
It wasn't long before Kelsea Ballerini started making a name for herself, climbing the male-dominated
country music charts with No. 1 hits like "Peter Pan" and "Dibs."
In 2016, she launched her first headlining tour, "The First Time," and later received
a Grammy nomination for best new artist.
But Ballerini didn't want to just write and perform songs.
She soon realized she wanted to help even the playing field for female country music
artists, who are often overlooked on country radio, by beating the odds herself.
"And I didn't know, at the time, really, there was like, there was a gap of women that weren't
on country radio.
But I was naive to it."
Speaking about her start in the music industry, Ballerini told AP News:
"I definitely feel like for any female, the odds weren't necessarily in our favor."
So, she worked hard to earn her radio time, and she scored a nomination in the all-genre
best new artist category, along with fellow country music newcomer Maren Morris.
It was the first time in Grammys history that two female country music artists were honored
in that category.
For Ballerini, this achievement was for female country artists everywhere.
Kelsea Ballerini's earlier sound was fun and flirty, but, as she evolved in the music industry
and grew into the woman she is today, she turned to songwriting to capture her metamorphosis,
releasing a more raw and emotional sophomore album, Unapologetically, in 2017.
In the track "In Between," Ballerini sings about her insecurities growing up.
In 2017, Ballerini told Variety she reflected on the last two years of her life to write
Unapologetically, saying:
"It starts with a breakup and starts gnarly and dark and starts angst-y, and then it goes
into kind of like that moment where you find yourself again, and through growing up a little
bit and fighting off some insecurities, and finding some new ones!
And then it goes into meeting the guy that I'm now marrying, and it ends really light
and full of love."
Despite her songs about heartbreak, Kelsea Ballerini found love with her now-hubby and
fellow country artist, Morgan Evans.
They first met in 2016 while co-hosting an award show in his native Australia, and sparks
flew between them during the afterparty.
Ballerini told People:
"Later that night he leaned over and asked if he could kiss me, like a proper gentleman,
and I said yes.
We both were in a place in our lives where we didn't think we were open to a relationship.
So yeah, we tried to self-sabotage.
And by the end of it we were like, 'We just aired out all of our dirty laundry and we
still want to be together.
This is awesome.
We just did two years in two weeks.'"
The couple tied the knot the following year with an intimate beach ceremony in Cabo San
Lucas, Mexico.
Even with all her success, Kelsea Ballerini never forgot about that little girl with a
big dream back in Knoxville.
Ballerini has always placed her hometown high on her priority list.
In 2016, she brought her "The First Time" tour to Knoxville.
Three years later, in 2019, she performed for a sold-out crowd at the Knoxville Civic
Coliseum for her "Miss Me More" arena tour.
During her 2019 performance, Ballerini took a minute between songs to thank her fans,
saying:
"It means the world to me to be able to come home and come to this room and see all your
faces and know that I can always come home, and you're going to be there for me.
Thank you."
She even shines a light on her hometown in her music.
"High School," one of the tracks off of Unapologetically, reflects on her time visiting Knoxville after
moving to Nashville to pursue music.
Kelsea Ballerini has experienced a lot of success in a short time, but she remains a
songwriter at heart, and she wants her fans to know that.
Talking with the Independent, Ballerini said she wrote The First Time with friends, sharing:
"I feel like the greatest gift we had when we made my first record is that none of us
knew what we were doing.
None of us had been in the room with a hit writer, I wrote the album with my friends.
I was on a new independent label.
We were winging it, hard."
While she's learned a lot since those early days, and now has a lot more help in the writing
process, one thing hasn't changed: the lengths she'll go to write the best songs for her
fans.
When it came time to write for Unapologetically, Ballerini told the Herald-Journal she wrote
about 200 songs before narrowing down the list.
Like the title of her sophomore album, Kelsea Ballerini has been unapologetically herself
in her life as much as in her career.
She told the Independent that she doesn't pay much attention to the naysayers who say
her music isn't country enough.
"I get comments about it a lot.
But I think it's a really cool eclectic time in country music, you can hear Little Big
Town who are folk country, Chris Stapleton, soul country, Sam Hunt who's R&B country,
me who's pop country.
You can hear the influences we listen to.
I grew up on a farm in east Tennessee and my first concert was Britney Spears, that's
my music."
To show fans and critics just how open she is to trying new sounds, in 2018, Ballerini
collaborated with EDM pop group The Chainsmokers on "This Feeling," which introduced her to
a more mainstream audience.
All of Kelsea Ballerini's hard work, sweat, and tears paid off when she was inducted as
the youngest current member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2019, after receiving a surprise invitation
to join from Little Big Town, as reported by the Tennessean.
When Ballerini was a little girl, she and her mom made the car trip from their home
in Knoxville to watch Josh Turner perform at the Opry, and now she's a part of Opry
history.
Ballerini told the Tennessean she didn't expect to earn the honor this early in her career,
if at all.
"It makes me really grateful, but it also makes me want to earn it just in case it was
early.
I want to make sure the music I make...that I have this intentional time to make right
now, is worthy of being an Opry member and worth of being in an arena."
"No matter if the radio stops playing me tomorrow, and whatever happens, that I can always come
here and I can always play country music."
Despite finding success as a singer-songwriter by reflecting on her past, Kelsea Ballerini
started focusing on her future.
She kicked off 2020 having released two songs in the months before, "Club" and what is possibly
her most emotional song yet, "Homecoming Queen?," and followed that up with a third studio album,
Kelsea, on March 20, 2020.
In an interview, she told the Tennessean that her marriage has given her perspective on
past failed relationships, and naturally she's channeling that into her new music.
"I'm writing the most heartbreaking songs I've ever written because I understand what
went wrong before now.
I think the older I get...the more confident I feel about writing that kind of stuff."
Since Ballerini broke into the music industry, she's grown as a woman and as an artist, but
she's still that same country girl with stories in her heart.
We can't wait to hear what she comes up with next!
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