After a tough few years that included a very public divorce and eventually finding love again, Morgan Evans can confidently say he is in a much better place and is ready to showcase that through his next album. Now, he’s finally ready to peel back the curtain and talk about that difficult chapter.
The country star and his now ex-wife, Kelsea Ballerini announced in August of 2022 that after five years of marriage, they would be parting ways. The divorce was finalized in November 2022. Evans stayed relatively quiet during this time, refraining from too many public interviews or statements, and instead poured himself into touring heavily as a way to distract him from the pain he was feeling.
“I remember, I think at the end of ‘22, I was like, ‘I want to be so busy next year that I don’t have time to think about my own life.’”
As he found himself in the very center of the pain and confusion he was facing after hearing his former partner say she wanted a divorce, Evans was struggling with who to trust and who to seek advice from. Especially as someone who never saw divorce unfold in his own family, this was completely new territory. So he turned to a friend in Nashville who was familiar with the hardship of being involved in public controversy: Bobby Bones.
This week, the two of them sit down for a conversation on a new episode of Bobby Bones Presents: The BobbyCast, now streaming on Netflix, where they discussed the moment he learned Ballerini wanted a divorce, the emotions that followed, and how he was able to move on and find happiness again in a new relationship.
“It all happened super quick,” Evans recalled. “From finding out that that was what Kelsea wanted to do to getting a lawyer and having a prenup and having three calls or four calls or something with the lawyer and signing the documents in the parking lot of the Ryman in the rain to going home. That all happened in three and a half, four months or something like that.”
He says it all began with a conversation with Ballerni that, from his perspective, came unexpectedly.
“Maybe that was me being naive. I don’t know, but I definitely wasn’t and it took me by surprise. But yeah, that whole time is such a blur. It almost feels like somebody else just from where I’m sitting now,” he admitted.
When word started to spread about the divorce, the Australian singer-songwriter became a target for headlines and hateful comments from fans and strangers online. Bones asked how he was able to deal with everything being said about him publicly. Evans explained he went through different stages of emotions including anger and hurt, until he eventually came to an important realization.
“…In my case, it didn’t feel like it necessarily had a lot to do with me. I think maybe I was presented or made out to be or became an archetype for any guy that had done any woman wrong during that period of time,” he shared. “And some of the stuff was just like, ‘What is this? That didn’t even make sense?’…I’d read stuff like, ‘What? What are you even talking about?’”
Evans shared that aside from “Over For You,” the devastating song that captured his feelings at the time, he didn’t write anything else for about four months while trying to process that his entire world had just changed. This led to a few more songs on his Life Upside Down EP.
“I love that song and the way people have reacted to that song have kind of changed the way that I think about how powerful music can be in a lot of ways,” he explained.
Since everything that unfolded, Morgan Evans has experienced plenty of changes in his life, including finding love again with fellow country singer Laci Kaye Booth. The pair have been together for about two years and now spend their days living together, touring, and traveling between the U.S. and Australia.
Dating wasn’t high up on Evans’ priority list for a long time, but they eventually became drawn to each other in a natural connection. He remained fairly tight lipped about their relationship, noting that he has learned from past experiences to draw a clear line between the level of detail that they choose to share publicly vs keep private.
“It’s not really like a crazy meeting story. We kind of knew each other doing radio shows and festivals and stuff like that, but a couple of years we just kind of, I don’t know, connected on that level and enjoyed each other’s company.”
He added, “I really care about her and I’m really grateful for where we’re at right now too. And I just don’t want to mess with it.”
Fans get to see a glimpse into their love for one another in their new duet, “Two Broken Hearts,” which appears on his upcoming sophomore album, Steel Town. Since it’s been so long since Morgan Evans has put out a full-length album, he says he wanted to make sure his next collection was one he was truly proud of. The product is 11 tracks that were mostly over a time he spent in Newcastle, reflecting on his life and finding himself again in his creativity.
“I was really thoughtful about the songs that I chose for this record from that period of time. Obviously wrote more than 11 songs in the last three years, but these 11 tracks to me, they all say something important on that journey of the last three years. So that was starting back in my hometown…all the way through the kind of stages of it and then finding the ground again and then building from there,” he explained.
All of these songs live under the title, Steel Town, which was written as a tribute to his hometown of Newcastle on Australia’s east coast.
“I named it after my hometown because it’s kind of where the story starts. It’s kind of where I felt like whatever this building of the next phase of my life started going home that Christmas and having that experience with the old mates and the old places and family, and that’s the place that it all built from…to be able to have a song and articulate a love for a hometown like ‘Steel Town,’ and there’s another song on the record called ‘Land I Love,’ which is about Australia as a whole,” Evans shared. “Those two songs particularly I feel like ground the record in a way that was really important and special to me. And so that’s where the name came from.”
Between his thriving relationship, his sophomore album dropping on March 20 and his new headline Steel Town Tour throughout Australia and New Zealand on the horizon, Morgan Evans can confidently say that life is looking pretty good at the moment.
“She’s been a rollercoaster or a ride or a haunted house maybe sometimes, but yeah, it’s good. It’s good to be alive right now. It’s good to have an Australian summer and it’s good to be back here with the record that I feel really proud about and the story to tell,” he added sincerely.
Evans opens up to the award-winning radio personality about even more, including the advice Bones offered him that helped him through that difficult time, how Keith Urban has been such an influential figure in his musical journey and more.
Find the full conversation on Netflix. New Episodes of Bobby Bones Presents: The BobbyCast drop every Tuesday and Thursday, with audio versions available on iHeartRadio and all major podcast platforms.
The post Morgan Evans Opens Up About Divorce, Finding Love Again, and His Most Personal Album Yet appeared first on Country Now.
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