Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes made the cutest couple on the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards pink carpet on Tuesday, September 12.
The couple shared a smooch while sporting matching red looks at the annual awards show held at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Ballernini, 30, donned a sleek, backless cutout dress and completed the ensemble with chunky gold bracelets. For beauty, the country star went for a natural glam makeup look and wore her hair in loose waves.
Stokes, 30, complemented his girlfriend’s outfit with a bright red suit jacket, a black dress shirt, shoes and belt and white pants.
The Outer Banks star showed up to support Ballerini, who is set to perform during the ceremony. In addition to making her VMAs debut, Ballerini is celebrating her milestone 30th birthday at the event.
Ballerini gave Stokes a shoutout during an interview on MTV’s VMAS pre-show while sharing her excitement about the night. “I feel like it’s been such a huge year in my personal life and in my career, and I feel really happy to be able to just present that tonight on this show and be here,” she shared. “My mom’s here, my man’s here and my friends are here. I’m happy.”
The couple have been going strong since January. “They work so well because they have fun together,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in July. “They have a no-drama relationship and can just be themselves.”
While Ballerini and Stokes are “serious,” the insider revealed that they had “no plans to get engaged anytime soon.”
Stars take red carpet PDA to another level at the MTV Video Music Awards. In the early 2000s, celebrity couples including Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra, Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, and Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson were the talk of the festivities. After exchanging vows in 2002, Lachey and Simpson attended the awards show […]
Earlier that month, Ballerini explained the pair’s decision to forego privacy when it comes to their relationship. “The thing that we’ve decided, and to each their own, is when you’re with someone that you feel secure with and that you’re proud to be with, why not share it?” she told StyleCaster. “He’s also a Virgo; we’re both Labrador Retrievers in human form. It doesn’t take much conversation to be on the same page. It’s been half a year and it’s been great.”
Ballerini added that she was “giving myself a lot of grace” after the “s—tstorm” of the previous year.
After her 2022 divorce from Morgan Evans, Ballerini released a six-song EP titled Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which documented the end of the marriage. Six months later, she dropped the updated version, Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good), complete with a song about dating again after her split.
Kelsea Ballerini and Chase Stokes quickly became a fan-favorite couple after confirming their relationship status. The country singer and the Outer Banks star were first linked in January 2023 after they were spotted together at the College Football Playoff National Championship in Los Angeles. Ballerini confirmed the romance one month later during an appearance on […]
“Especially now, I’ve been in a new relationship for a while now, and people have seen that,” she told Us in August. “So I feel like it’s a really appropriate time to catch everyone up and to be able to move the narrative from the past to the present.”
For Ballerini, her emotions surrounding the original breakup music changed after performing it live for fans. “I just got to a place where the songs and what they were about — obviously, that will always be a chapter of my life that I will bookmark with that album — but I don’t have those feelings toward it anymore,” she said. “Now, it’s just this thing that has connected me to people and I wanna be able to say thank you by giving them what they’ve asked for through this music. So that’s why I’m so excited about it. My only feeling toward it is gratitude.”
Scroll below to see more pics of the couple’s VMAs date night:
