Kelsea Ballerini's Mom Carla Denham Says Daughter's 'Pain' in Divorce Short Film Wasn't 'Acting'

Watching your daughter experience heartbreak is never easy — and Kelsea Ballerini's mom Carla Denham can attest to that.

Denham appeared on an episode of the Got It from My Momma podcast, hosted by Jennifer Vickery Smith, and opened up about what is was like watching the country singer in her short film Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, released alongside a heart-tugging EP of the same name.

"As she was sending me those songs when she would write them... I would just bawl," Denham told the host. "The songs were hard enough to listen to but I also know that it's cathartic for her. That's her way of processing hurt and pain... it's to go write it — then it's out of her."

In the short film, Ballerini, 29, wore her heart on sleeve and gave fans an inside look at her divorce from Morgan Evans.

"I watched that film and the pain on her face... I've seen that pain. It's real pain," Denham said.

When Denham first learned the "Peter Pan" singer would be shooting the film, she was impressed by her daughter's strength.

"I was thinking, 'God, how are you gonna do that?' I couldn't do that — there's no way," she said. "If she had hired an actress to do that, it would've hurt for me to watch it, but to watch her acting out what she really felt and experienced was just... it's that blend between I'm in total awe, and I just wanted to take her and put her in a plastic bubble and let's just go away somewhere away from the world."

She added, "That was a hard day for her."

The full episode of Got It from My Momma with Denham is available here.

Ballerini released Rolling Up the Welcome Mat on Feb. 14 and described it as the next chapter of her latest album, 2022's SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

"When I listen to SUBJECT TO CHANGE, I hear a lot of self-reflection and turmoil. This is the deep dive into that turmoil," she said in a statement at the time. "I was writing by myself for most of the project, and it was nice to trust myself again."

She then noted that her musical origins stemmed from writing therapeutically through dark moments. "The only way I've been able to handle my life since I was 12 was to write about it. Ironically, I started writing music because my parents got divorced; that was my therapy," continued Ballerini's statement.

"These are six songs I wish I had last year. It's about the complexities of the feelings you go through during a massive shift at a young age," she said of the project. "Rolling Up the Welcome Mat was how I processed everything. It's the way I got my feelings out of my body and heart and put them to music — which is the purest way I could've handled it."

Ballerini filed for divorce from Evans in August after nearly five years of marriage, and their split was finalized in November. Since then, Grammy-nominee has been linked to Outer Banks star Chase Stokes.