Lindsay Ell Says She Will Always Love Bobby Bones, Even After Split (Exclusive)

While their romance wasn't able to last, Lindsay Ell vows she will always love Bobby Bones. The rising country music star and iHeartRadio host dated for a little over a year before splitting up in 2017, when it became too challenging for them both to navigate their own careers. While Ell was heartbroken over the split, she vows to remain friends with Bones, and says she will always love him.

"That was sort of my first public relationship, and it was a really hard thing for me to get over, honestly, and move past for so many reasons," Ell told PopCulture.com. "Bobby's so wonderful and I still will love him for the rest of my life and want the absolute best for him. We were best friends before we started dating and now we're still really, really close."

Ell and Bones were friends for years before their relationship turned to romance, and remains close to the Dancing With the Stars winner, even if it is sometimes painful for Ell.

"He's one of my biggest fans, which is awesome, but that makes it really hard to go forward," Ell acknowledged. "Given our situation, given politically where things sat within the industry, it was never a bad break-up. It was, 'Well, how is this ever going to work?' Which is hard and made it harder, and yet I'm a songwriter and I write about what's happening in my life."

Ell's current single, "I Don't Love You," is from her upcoming new album. The song, like so many others, tells painfully honest stories of Ell's own life, including her heartache over not continuing her relationship with Bones.

"In the past two, three years, that was a big part of it. And so for sure, this record and the story of the past three years is going to have a bit of that," revealed Ell. "The last three years are definitely going to be a part of my story. Not the whole story, but a part of it for sure. That was a big thing for me. And I think that anytime you go through something that's big in your life, you are reaching new breakthroughs and breaking points that teach you about yourself and teach you to understand things in your childhood that made you into who you are, that make us think the way we do, that make us react to different things in life the way we do.

"I feel like I've been through this tunnel in the past three years of the biggest, the deepest I ever have," she added, "and I'm coming out the other side as somebody who's finally ready to take control of their life."

Photo Credit: Getty / Anna Webber