Kelsea Ballerini called out a concertgoer during her Sydney show on Dec. 6 after they shouted her ex-husband’s name while she performed an emotional song about their divorce.
The Grammy-nominated singer told the attendee to “f— off” when they yelled “Team Morgan!” during her performance of “Penthouse.” The crowd immediately booed the heckler.
Footage shared on social media shows Ballerini rolling her eyes after the exchange. “See? Everyone’s happy,” she said with a smile, giving fans a thumbs-up before flipping off the disruptive concertgoer.
“Penthouse” appears on Ballerini’s 2023 EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat. She wrote and recorded the project after her divorce from Australian singer-songwriter Morgan Evans.
The song includes lyrics about packing belongings and dividing assets: “It hurts putting s— in a box / And now we don’t talk / And it stings rolling up the welcome mat / Knowing you got half.”
Ballerini addressed the incident on Instagram Stories afterward.
respectfully, if anyone yells anything disrespectful to anyone during this song again, it will no longer be on the setlist. please let this be a song that matters to people and not a place to insert yourself into a world that doesn’t exist and was never yours to begin with. team everyone’s happy or bust, please.
Divorce Details
Ballerini filed for divorce from Evans in August 2022 after nearly five years of marriage, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.
“They’ve been working on their marriage for a very long time,” a source told PEOPLE at the time. “Prior to this, they had separated privately once before and have been in therapy for several years.”
The couple first met in March 2016 while co-hosting Australia’s CMC Awards. They got engaged that December and married in Mexico about a year later.
Ballerini opened up about the divorce in an April 2025 PEOPLE cover story. She described how writing Rolling Up the Welcome Mat helped her heal during that period.
“I was going through what my parents did, and I went back to writing songs simply because I had to,” she said. “I was like, ‘I have to get it out of me.'”
The 32-year-old wanted to show different perspectives on heartbreak and life changes, especially for women going through divorce.
After splitting from Evans, Ballerini dated Chase Stokes on and off for about three years. A rep confirmed they separated in September 2025, though reconciliation rumors sparked when they were spotted vacationing together in Europe.
Ballerini released her latest EP Mount Pleasant in November. She’s finishing the final leg of her Patterns Tour with three remaining shows in Australia.
