Kelsea Ballerini Explains How Boyfriend Chase Stokes Supported Her in Writing Her New Album: ’Really Proud’ (Exclusive)

This isn’t Kelsea Ballerini’s first rodeo — but it’s her first time making an album while dating Outer Banks and Uglies actor Chase Stokes!

The country singer, 31, revealed to PEOPLE how Stokes, 32, supported her upcoming fifth album, Patterns, during the Glamour Women of the Year Awards on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at the Paradise Club in New York City.

“He’s been such a big, beautiful part of my life for almost two years now,” began Ballerini, who started dating Stokes in early 2023 after she slid into his DMs and “just swan dove right on in” in December 2022.

“I’m really proud of the art that he's inspired,” she continued. “And I’m really proud to be with someone who’s a truth-teller in his own art too. And to be aligned in that way and to share parts of our relationship and that kind of stuff, so openly and willingly, is really beautiful.”

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Stokes also recently supported his girlfriend at the People's Choice Country Awards, where she performed “Two Things” from her new album.

Ballerini previously shared with PEOPLE how Stokes helped ease her nerves for her recent acting debut in the new ABC medical drama Doctor Odyssey.

“I've always called acting his world, and so whenever I was asking him questions about this opportunity, I was like, 'What about this in your world?' And he was like, 'Hey, it's just a world. I'm a part of it and now you're a part of it. It's not my world,’ ” she recalled. “By the end of the conversation, I was like, 'Okay, so you'll run the scene with me?' And he was like, 'Yeah, let's do it.’ ”

The couple recently had a health scare with Dibs, one of their two dogs. Ballerini announced in August that Dibs was diagnosed with “inoperable cancer in his heart.” Ballerini has been a dog mom to Dibs for more than nine years, while Stokes adopted Milo in 2020.

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In September, Stokes updated PEOPLE on how they’re handling Dibs.

“We're just taking it day by day right now,” Stokes said. “I mean, it's one of those things that when it happens as fast as it does, you just try to do the next right thing.”

Ballerini's new album Patterns will be released on Oct. 25.