Kelsea Ballerini Was A “Big-Time Ghoster” Before Chase Stokes Romance

Kelsea Ballerini’s primary focus right now is breaking old habits. That conviction is at the core of her newly released album, Patterns, which gets deeply personal about the singer’s divorce from Morgan Evans and relationship with Chase Stokes over the past couple years. In keeping with the record’s theme, Ballerini opened up about an “unhealthy pattern” she used to rely on in her love life.

“I used to be a big-time ghoster,” the singer told People in an Oct. 25 interview. “One thing I’ve realized about myself is in any relationship in my life, with my career, with my friends, obviously with a partner, as soon as something feels scary, like it could go wrong, my habit and my unhealthy pattern is to just be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to jump ship. So I hurt myself and they don’t hurt me.’”

Since confronting this habit of hers, Ballerini has grown to appreciate weathering the tough times instead of running away from them.

“I’ve realized that that really doesn’t serve me, and sometimes the best thing that can happen for a friendship or a relationship or an opportunity is to have the hard conversations and work through a turmoil moment,” Ballerini said. “When you come out on the other side of that, there’s so much beauty in that, and there’s so much mutual respect of that fight for each other. And I think that’s, in my personal life, a thing that I’m really proud of finally tackling.”

A large part of Patterns is inspired by how her relationship with Stokes — which began with a flirty DM in late 2022 — has helped her reflect on her usual tendencies.

“The whole record takes you through a very real journey of people that come together that have relational history and public relational history and different upbringings and different family dynamics and all these things, and you come together as adults and you have lives to sort through to be able to build one together,” Ballerini told NYLON. “And to me, that is the most appealing part of love, sorting through all that and finding those dynamics that you’re able to undo those patterns together. And I think it’s a love record. It’s just probably not what people are expecting.”