Kelsea Ballerini Reveals Failed Audition for ‘The White Lotus’

Kelsea Ballerini nearly checked into The White Lotus.

The country singer has revealed that she once auditioned for the HBO hit, but didn’t get the role.

While Ballerini eventually made her acting debut on an episode of ABC’s new series Doctor Odyssey last fall, she previously told Variety she’s “auditioned for a lot of things and not gotten them.” She then admitted to PEOPLE on Thursday that one of those roles was the assistant of Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya in Season 2, which wound up going to Haley Lu Richardson.

“I have no shame in my game!” Ballerini expressed. “I auditioned for the second season of The White Lotus for the role [of] Jennifer Coolidge’s assistant that Haley did.” The Grammy nominee said that Richardson acted “so brilliantly and beautifully” as Portia, and said, “But yeah, I did audition for that. Fun fact.”

Considering all that Portia went through on Season 2 of The White Lotus, it would have been entertaining to see Ballerini take on the role. The assistant was caught up in a criminal underbelly in Sicily, exploited, kidnapped, and then sent back to the U.S. However, her bridezilla character on Doctor Odyssey was just as entertaining. She told PEOPLE in September she was “timid” before making the jump to acting.

“I wasn’t reserved on the fact that it was my first time,” she explained. “So I asked a lot of questions and I feel like I learned so much, and I really hope that I did the character and the show proud.” Ballerini also shared how she would ask boyfriend and Outer Banks star Chase Stokes plenty of questions, saying she’s “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,’” Ballerini continued. “By the end of the conversation, I was like, ‘OK, so you’ll run the scene with me?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”

Whether or not the “Baggage” singer has set her sights on any more acting jobs is unknown, but she seems to be getting more comfortable with auditioning. And it’s very likely Doctor Odyssey won’t be her last role.