What you need to know
Kelsea Ballerini is doing her best with a captivating performance at the 2025 CMA Awards.
The ‘I Sit in Parks’ singer, 32, graced the country’s biggest night with a head-turning look. At the awards ceremony, she wore an eye-catching sheer red dress. The front of the dress featured an oversized rosette, and the completely sheer skirt revealed a sassy backside.
She pulled the whole look together with towering red heels and a bright red lip.
Ballerini has been nominated for Female Vocalist Artist of the Year and will be one of the performers.
Jason Davis/WireImage
The “Cowboys Cry Too” artist attended both 2023 and 2024 with her then-boyfriend Chase Stokes.
Sources confirmed to PEOPLE in September that the singer-songwriter and Outer Banks star had split after nearly three years together.
“They’re two adults who tried their best and tried everything they could to make it work, but ultimately they couldn’t. That’s what happens,” a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE.
On November 7, about two months after their breakup, the two were spotted holding hands at Kiba Smashburger in Dubrovnik, Croatia, according to an onlooker.
Check out PEOPLE’s full coverage of the CMA Awards here.
Stokes recently clapped back at fans spreading negativity with comments on one of Ballerini’s posts that referenced both her and her ex-girlfriend and co-star Madeleine Cline. “These comments are very strange,” he wrote. “grow up.”
Ballerini recently debuted her new EP, Mount Pleasant, and performed it live for the first time during The Mount Pleasant Experience pop-up activation in Nashville.
After closing the night with her new mental health anthem, “Check on Your Friends,” Ballerini was overcome with emotion and cried as she thanked her fans for supporting Mount Pleasant and being there for her throughout her career.
Never miss a news. Sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to human interest stories.
Dimitrios Cambris/Getty
“Thank you for accepting the less shiny parts of me these past few years,” she said. “I know I’m the luckiest person to be able to have all these big emotions and be like, ‘If I don’t put that in my music, it’s going to burn.'”
The 59th Annual CMA Awards will be broadcast live on ABC from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Wednesday, November 19th from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM. The program will be streamed on Hulu starting the next day.
