During a Rolling Up the Welcome Mat fan event held at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, Kelsea Ballerini confirmed that the emotional voice recording in her song “Blindsided” originates from an actual conversation.
During a fan Q&A session, an attendee asked about the origin of the dialogue snippet featured in the bridge of “Blindsided.” Within this segment of the song, an audio clip captures a woman, who people assume is Ballerini, saying with heavy emotion, “It’s not fu–ing news to you, babe. You’ve been in this relationship. It’s not news.”
@entertainment_weekly #KelseaBallerini says the voice memo in #Blindsided is real 😳 #RollingUpTheWelcomeMat #CountryMusic #KelseaBalleriniEdit ♬ original sound – Entertainment Weekly
Since its debut, fans have raised questions about whether the line stemmed from a genuine conversation in Ballerini’s personal life, given the profound emotional intensity it carries.
“This was a no-fly question on all of the interviews I’ve done,” Ballerini admits to the crowd.
With hesitation, Ballerini goes on to say, “Well, it’s real. That’s all I’ll tell you. It’s real.”
However, this wasn’t the only big news she dropped during the event. Ballerini also announced that she will be releasing a deluxe version of her EP, called”Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good).”
Originally, Rolling Up the Welcome Mat was released in February of this year and featured prominently during Ballerini’s recently-concluded Heartfirst tour. Throughout the tour, the songs from the EP underwent transformations, and Ballerini made significant lyrical revisions. Notably, she added a powerful new verse to “Blindsided” and changed a line in “Penthouse” from “Now I don’t know where you’re sleeping, baby” to “Now I don’t care where you’re sleeping, baby.”
The forthcoming deluxe version will capture these modifications and will also include a new song titled “How Do I Do This.”
