Kelsea Ballerini is clarifying the meaning behind one eyebrow-raising lyric.
The country star is denying any animosity toward a potential reference to Halsey in her song “Doin’ My Best, where the singer hints at a broken friendship with a former collaborator.
The track contains the lyrics, “I was friends with a pop star / I put ’em on track four, but / Wish I could take it back, I woulda never asked / If I knew we wouldn’t talk anymore,” which fans speculated could be the “Gasoline” singer, who joined Kelsea on “The Other Girl,” the fourth track on her 2020 album, Kelsea.
However, Kelsea recently shared that the lyric wasn’t singling anyone in particular out but was meant to reflect the difficult nature of having friends within the music industry.
“I hope people interpret that line like it was meant to be, which is no shade at all,” she said during Amazon Music’s Country Heat Weekly on Sept. 29. “It’s just saying that one of the things I’ve had to navigate is naturally you want to become friends with other artists because no one is going to get your life like another artist does. And then, sometimes, that becomes really awkward and sometimes there’s competition involved.”
