Kelsea Ballerini has denied throwing "shade" at Halsey in her new song Doin' My Best.
The track, included on her fourth studio album Subject to Change, includes 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."
Fans quickly took the words to be a message directed at Halsey, whom she collaborated with on The Other Girl from her 2020 record Kelsea.
But during an appearance on Amazon Music's Country Heat Weekly last week, the country star clarified the real meaning behind the lyric.
"I hope people interpret that line like it was meant to be, which is no shade at all," she insisted. "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."
Kelsea noted that she had wanted to reference the difficult nature of maintaining friendships in the music industry more generally.
"Sometimes you try to do something together, 'cause they're your friend and you want to share art together. And then you introduce business into it, and it just messes everything up. That was what I was trying to say," the 29-year-old added.
Kelsea dropped Subject to Change, which includes appearances from Kelly Clarkson and Carly Pearce, last month.
