Carly Pearce Opens up About Close Friendship With Kelsea Ballerini: 'She Championed Me'

Carly Pearce is opening up about her close friendship with Kelsea Ballerini. The two have been friends for several years, since before either of them released an album. But it was Ballerini who encouraged Pearce, when Pearce was ready to give up on her own dreams.

"I'd been in Nashville 10 years," Pearce told Woman's Day. "I had a record deal on Sony, and I lost it. I was in a group that was mentoring young girls trying to figure out whether they [wanted to be] artists or songwriters. All these girls were trying to be really strong and confident, even if they weren't. Then I introduced myself and started crying. 'I'm Carly Pearce, and I just lost my record deal, and have no idea what I'm doing.' Kelsea Ballerini was in there. She was about to put out her debut single, and we became friends right then, and she championed me long before I had my [current] record deal.

"She's taken me out on every one of her tours prior to me having any singles on the radio," she continued. "She talked about me in every interview. And when 'Every Little Thing' happened, she sent a cake, flowers, and a card. She is the perfect example of a woman who had no reason other than her pure heart. I'll never forget that, and I hope to pay it forward someday.
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Pearce is proud of the other female artists who are currently – and finally – making headway on the charts, and no one is happier for them than the "Closer to You" singer.

"You have Kelsea, Maren [Morris] and myself, and Runaway June and Lindsay Ell really doing some things on the charts that are amazing, and I think we're all really happy for and rooting for one another," Pearce said. "We know we're just continuing to bulldoze it down so the next girl in 10 years is sitting there watching us the way we watched Faith [Hill] and Reba [McEntire] and wondering, 'Oh my gosh, can I be like them?'"

Pearce doesn't envision a time when the women will start competing against each other, mostly because they've banded together for so long already.

"I think it's a sisterhood," said Pearce. "I think you're seeing, more than ever, lots of women on the radio, and I feel like we all believe that if one of us is winning, we're all winning. We are championing each other."

Photo Credit: Getty images/ Jeff Kravitz