A new couple on our 2023 bingo card? Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes have sparked dating speculation months after she finalized her divorce from Morgan Evans.
“Lil recap,” the Outer Banks star, 30, captioned a Friday, January 13, photo dump on Instagram. In his third slide of the carousel, Stokes and Ballerini, 29, are seen cuddling from their box seats at the College Football Playoff National Championship.
Stokes wore a flannel shirt and a black baseball cap while the “Peter Pan” songstress sat beside him. While the photo only showed the backs of their heads, the Tell Me Your Secrets alum tagged Ballerini’s Instagram account.
The twosome watched the Georgia Bulldogs take home a win against the TCU Horned Frogs during Sunday, January 8, game. The Tennessee native, however, wasn’t rooting for either collegiate team. “Go vols 🙈,” Ballerini replied to Stokes’ post, referring to the University of Tennessee’s own team.
Two days earlier, Stokes commented on the singer’s Instagram photo dump. “Could you please add piping hot sake to the list on slide 8 please with a side of burnt finger tips?” he wrote on Wednesday, January 11, referring to her pic of her Del Taco meal.
While neither Ballerini nor Stokes have publicly addressed their relationship status, their athletic outing comes months after the “Heartfirst” singer and Evans, 37, announced their separation.
“Friends, I’ve always tried my best to share my life with you in a real and vulnerable way, while also protecting layers of my personal life as they unfold,” Ballerini wrote via her Instagram Story in August 2022. “This is now public record so I wanted you to hear from me directly that I am going through a divorce. … This deeply difficult decision is the result of a journey of love, growth, and effort that ultimately has come to an end.”
The “Hole in the Bottle” artist and the Australia native, who wed in 2017, reached a divorce settlement that November and have since both been candid about moving on.
“It’s been a rough few months in my life,” Evans told Access Hollywood later that month at the 2022 CMAs. “One of the hardest parts [of going through a divorce] is how lonely it feels. It’s strangely comforting to realize that so many other people have been through it, which I didn’t.”
Stokes, for his part, last dated his Outer Banks costar Madelyn Cline from April 2020 to November 2021.
“She’s one of my favorite people on planet Earth,” the Between Waves actor exclusively told Us Weekly one month later, revealing that they still kept in touch despite the breakup. “You know, it’s super awesome to work with somebody that you care about that much, and yeah, I’ll leave it at that.”
