Kelsea Ballerini Jokes About Claims That She and Chase Stokes Are in a 'Staged' Relationship

Kelsea Ballerini is taking the claims that she and Chase Stokes are faking their relationship in stride.

On Tuesday, the 29-year-old country star shared a photo of herself sitting on the 30-year-old Outer Banks actor's lap while holding his hand backstage at Saturday Night Live to her Instagram Story, captioning the post: "idk seems staged. probably pr."

The night before, Ballerini posted a photo of the pair walking hand-in-hand, seemingly leaving the SNL studio, while Stokes held a bag from the NBC Experience Store. "hi chase stokes," she wrote alongside the image.

While at SNL together for the "Blindsided" musician's first musical guest slot on the show Saturday, Stokes also shared a series of sweet snaps to his Instagram Story that featured him showing his pride for his new girlfriend.

"Well s—. That was special ❤️," he wrote atop a photo of him posing outside her SNL dressing room. "Proud of you my love."

Stokes also posted a snap of him kissing Ballerini, who he's been dating since December, on the cheek as she took a selfie. He later reshared Ballerini's Instagram post of the pair to his Story and wrote: "QUEEN s--- @kelseaballerini you did the f---ing damn thing."

As the SNL musical guest, Ballerini performed her new hits "Blindsided" and "Penthouse," which both feature on her EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which offers a lyrical deep dive into her divorce from fellow country star Morgan Evans.

In an interview with the Call Her Daddy podcast last month, she revealed that she met Stokes by sliding into his DMs ("I'm not going to get on an app") after the two began following each other on Instagram.

"I've never seen his show, but I just knew of him, and I just swan dove right on in," Ballerini said.

When host Alex Cooper asked her what she said to the actor, the "Yeah Boy" singer shared that she kept it simple: "His handle is '@hichasestokes,' and I said, 'Hi, Chase Stokes.'"

Ballerini went on to explain that she approached the new relationship with a new perspective, after filing for divorce from Evans, 37, last August.

"I think I'm finally an adult," she said. "I think that just happened over the last couple of years, and I feel like what that means to me is I have opinions. I have a career that is a priority for me, to show up for myself and the people that I've aligned with along this journey. And I have aspirations and goals that are tied to no one, and those are all really important things."