Kelsea Ballerini Brings Boyfriend Chase Stokes Back Home to Her Knoxville High School

The country star recently took her boyfriend on a trip down memory lane to her Tennessee hometown

Kelsea Ballerini
Chase Stokes and Kelsea Ballerini. Photo:

Kelsea Ballerini/Instagram

John B. is bringing it to Kelsea Ballerini's hometown.

On Tuesday, the country star took a trip to her native Knoxville, Tennessee with boyfriend Chase Stokes in tow and documented the visit via her Instagram Stories — including a cute selfie of the pair.

During the trip, Ballerini shared photos of her alma mater Central High School, showing off a banner featuring the school's Bobcats mascot as well as a mural of Dolly Parton.

"a heart fillin 24 hours at home," the 29-year-old "Blindsided" singer-songwriter captioned a photo of a menu at Litton's Market Restaurant & Bakery in Knoxville.

Kelsea Ballerini/Instagram
Chase Stokes and Kelsea Ballerini.

Kelsea Ballerini/Instagram

She then posted a picture of herself holding hands with Stokes as they walked through the Bobcats' football field, referencing the 30-year-old actor's Outer Banks character John B. Routledge in the caption.

"don't say it don't say it don't say it," wrote Ballerini. "BRINGITONHOMEJOHNB"

She concluded the Instagram Stories walk down memory lane with a photo of her overlooking the football field alongside the caption, "go bobcats."

Ballerini and Stokes have been linked since January, when the Netflix star posted a photo of them getting cozy at a Georgia vs. TCU game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Kelsea Ballerini/Instagram
Kelsea Ballerini.

Kelsea Ballerini/Instagram

In April, they walked their first red carpet as a couple as they attended the CMT Awards, where Ballerini co-hosted alongside Kane Brown. The two were all smiles as they hugged it out on the red carpet.

Earlier this month, Stokes posted a blurry selfie of the couple looking very cozy. In the comments, Ballerini wrote: "you cute."

Stokes later commented on one of Ballerini's Instagram photo dumps. "I really ❤️ u," he wrote.

A few weeks ago, the "Peter Pan" performer seemed to reveal that she's working on a deluxe version of her recent Rolling Up the Welcome Mat EP, which chronicled the end of her marriage to ex-husband Morgan Evans. (The pair's divorce was finalized in November.)

Chase Stokes and Kelsea Ballerini attend the 2023 CMT Music Awards at Moody Center on April 02, 2023 in Austin, Texas
Chase Stokes and Kelsea Ballerini. Kevin Mazur/Getty

One of her followers asked, "RUTWM deluxe!!?" to which she responded with a photo of herself smiling while wearing headphones and holding a microphone, hinting that she's recording new music.

In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Ballerini spoke about being an "open book," a quality that served her well as she wrote the EP about the "turmoil" of her divorce.

"I feel like I'm playing catch up, really, since Rolling Up the Welcome Mat came out because I put out a proper record called Subject to Change in September, and that was an album that I spent two years on, and then obviously, I had a lot of life go on," she said. "I wrote about it 'cause that's what I've always done since I was a kiddo."

She also explained that her latest project marked "the first time that I got back to a filterless way of making music."

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