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Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes are reportedly back together after splitting up earlier this year.
Ballerini, 32, and Stokes, 33, were recently spotted holding hands and sitting closely together at Kiba Smash Burger in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Since the sighting on Friday (November 7), rumors have swirled about whether they’ve rekindled their relationship. The reunion in Croatia apparently took place after the country star and the actor were seen together in Scotland, per an US Weekly report. The publication credited an unnamed “insider” when reporting on Monday morning (November 10) that “Kelsea and Chase are giving their relationship another try. There’s still a lot of love there, so they fell back into it very naturally.”
However, neither Ballerini nor Stokes publicly addressed their relationship status as of publication time. Ballerini only addressed “speculators, ‘sources’, and hidden cameras outside the hair salon” after the breakup in a TikTok set to Ariana Grande’s “shut up.” Ballerini said on TikTok at that time, “let us be. please. ❤️🩹”
Unnamed sources “close to the couple” confirmed to PEOPLE in September that Ballerini and Stokes parted ways. Those sources said they’re “two adults who gave it their all and tried to do everything they could to make it work, but ultimately couldn’t. It happens.”
Ballerini and Stokes first started talking when she slid into his DMs in December 2022. They first sparked dating rumors in January 2023, when Stokes posted a photo sitting closely with Ballerini at the College Football Playoff National Championship at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Ballerini confirmed the budding romance in an interview on Call Her Daddy. She and Stokes made their red carpet debut as a couple at the 2023 CMT Music Awards at Moody Center in Austin, Texas, and they’ve since shared sweet glimpses into their relationship on social media and in interviews.
Rumors of reconciliation arrived as Ballerini released her newest song, “I Sit In Parks.” The reflective, vulnerable ballad is the first to arrive from Mount Pleasant, a 6-track EP arriving on Friday (November 14). The collection — which some fans noticed takes on the same name as a town in South Carolina where Outer Banks is filmed — also includes “People Pleaser,” “Emerald City,” “587,” “The Revisionist” and “Check On Your Friends.”
“I have always made records – whether songs, EPs or albums – to capture a moment in time,” the 2026 Grammy nominee said in a statement. She wrote the EP throughout the summer to mark “a chapter of heavy self-examination, longing, and stepping further into who I am as a 32-year old woman.”