Kelsea Ballerini was ecstatic to helm the 2024 CMT Music Awards on Sunday, April 7.
“I have been waiting months to say this, welcome to the 2024 CMT Awards,” Ballerini, 30, exclaimed in her opening monologue from Austin’s Moody Center. “I’m so happy to be hosting the show again this year. When CMT called me and they were like, ‘Hey, will you host for the fourth year in a row?’ There was really only appropriate response and it was, ‘Yeah, sure, OK.’”
As Ballerini’s fans know, “Yeah, sure, OK” is the updated outro on her 2023 single “Blindsided,” which she debuted on Saturday Night Live in March 2023.
“Now you’re singing out loud on the radio. But you’re the only heart that breaks,” she adds at the end of the track. “You would’ve searched the whole world over. Yeah, sure. OK.”
“Blindsided” is a song off her EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which detailed her divorce from fellow country singer Morgan Evans. After the track dropped, he released his own musical response in “Over You,” which asked when she knew their marriage was done for good.
Ballerini’s Sunday reference was a planned bit for her core fans. Several hours earlier via TikTok, she responded to a comment where a social media user told her to work the line into the show.
“Challenge accepted,” Ballerini quipped in the clip while getting her makeup done. “I will sneak ‘Yeah, sure, OK’ into the script tonight and only the people that see this video will understand that it’s going to be our thing.”
Ballerini included her updated “Blindsided” lines on her Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good) EP that dropped in August 2023, a follow-up to the version she put out the previous February.
“It’s not mine anymore, it’s just not. Like, it’s very much so an ‘ours’ thing. And so [the fans have] been very vocal from the very beginning — as soon as I played ‘Blindsided’ on SNL, they were like, ‘We need the ‘Yeah, Sure, OK’ version,’” she exclusively told Us Weekly at the time. “And then when I started singing ‘Penthouse’ live, it kind of just changed and evolved every night. And then one day, on a whim, I just changed one word and it took on a whole new life and they were like, ‘We need that version.’ It’s called ‘The Healed Version.’ I never made that up! That was them.”
Ballerini has moved on from Evans, 39, finding love with Outer Banks actor Chase Stokes in January 2023. They made their red carpet debut at the CMTs that April and returned to the show on Sunday.
“We aren’t really on the ‘let’s match’ train. We just try to co-exist with our looks, but never intentionally match. We try to favor each other for sure,” Stokes, 31, exclusively told Us last month of their red carpet style.
On Sunday, Ballerini stunned in red on the carpet while Stokes wore an all-white suit. Ballerini also had multiple wardrobe changes during the ceremony, changing from yellow gowns to Barbie-inspired cowgirl jumpsuits and more.
