Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes have broken up again, with the couple splitting up a second time just five weeks after reconciling around the new year.
The news was first reported by TMZ and confirmed by People on Sunday (Feb. 9) — but the sudden disappearance of Ballerini’s photos with the Outer Banks star on her Instagram was more than enough to spark breakup rumors on their own. The singer also appears to have unfollowed Stokes on Instagram.
Billboard reached out to Ballerini and Stokes’ reps for comment.
The pair have been through a lot in recent months. After about three years of dating, a rep confirmed to Billboard in September that they’d called it quits, despite Stokes posting a lovey-dovey birthday tribute to his then-girlfriend just days prior.
Then, on New Year’s Eve, Ballerini and the actor confirmed they’d gotten back together. Sharing photos of himself snuggling up with the country star, Stokes wrote on Instagram, “Something I’ve learned this year: don’t take advantage of the most beautiful things that in 33 years of life are fleeting. Take accountability, learn from mistakes. Lean into love and say it often.”
In a now-deleted post of her own, Ballerini had added, “Messy year for the heart, messy year for the outside coming in, messy year for the way it became an out of our hands portrayal of it. But what i’ll say, and all i really care to share indefinitely with my personal life anymore, is that i really love love. I believe in it, i believe in him, and i believe in breaking patterns.”
Though perhaps not quite as sudden as the first time, Ballerini and Stokes’ second breakup has once again surprised fans due to the fact that the former had gushed about the latter on the Grammys red carpet just a week or so before their split. At the award show on Sunday (Feb. 1), Ballerini told Entertainment Tonight, “I love love, and I believe in it, and I also believe so much in, like, finding the things that make you happy and finding the things that you want to work on and figuring out when the rubber meets the road, how to make that work.”
“It looked a lot more dramatic than it was, and that was quite the learning lesson for us,” she also said at the time of how their first breakup had appeared to the public. “But I love him so much. We’ve been together for quite a while now and done a lot of life together.”
Ballerini last dropped music in November 2025. That month, EP Mount Pleasant debuted at No. 68 on the Billboard 200, marking her eighth entry on the chart.
