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Backstage Country

Kelsea Ballerini Stuns As Barbie Doppelganger

Kelsea Ballerini dressed up as Barbie from the Barbie movie in her pink cowboy outfit, bell bottoms, and white cowboy hat, and she’s a dead ringer for the character. She…

Kelsea Baleriniu dressed as Barbie in a pink suit and white cowboy hat
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Kelsea Ballerini dressed up as Barbie from the Barbie movie in her pink cowboy outfit, bell bottoms, and white cowboy hat, and she's a dead ringer for the character. She posted a series of photos on Instagram of her in the Barbie movie outfit and a video clip of herself getting ready to wear the costume.

In the video clip, you see Kelsea on her bed in sweats and then a few clips of her putting on the Barbie wig and then the completed outfit. During the clip, you can hear Barbie and Ken say, "Hi Barbie" and "Hi Ken," just like they did in the movie. She captioned the fun post, "HI BARBIE, HAPPY (early) HALLOWEEN,"

Many of her four million followers commented on the post. One fan wrote in all caps, "I THOUGHT THIS WAS MAD WHEN I WAS SCROLLING. TWINS. LITERAL TWINS WITH THE QUEEN HERSELF." Another fan commented, "My 9-year-old has the same costume. She looooooovvvveeeessss it. You look amazing." One more fan gushed, "I don't think anyone else could pull this off this good (excluding Margo Robbie's actual Barbie)."

Meanwhile, country star Barbie (Kelsea) chatted about the early days of her relationship with actor and boyfriend Chase Stokes. In a recent interview, she told Apple's Fancy Hagood about the early days, she said, "I think part of me was telling myself because I was newly dating at that point, and I think part of me was still playing the game of, like, okay, I'm going to just put it all out there in the beginning. If you're not down, I don't want to waste my time."

Ballerini added, "Then part of me was like, I haven't dated since I was 22. How long do I wait to respond kind of thing? I was in the middle of those two narratives." She adds that the relationship is "really good" now.

As Kelsea Ballerini celebrates her 30th birthday today (9/12), she is in New York City getting ready to make her MTV VMA debut performance. She is expected to treat fans to a world premiere performance from the expanded version of her EP Rolling Up The Welcome Mat (For Good).

Ballerini posted the news to Instagram. The announcement was captioned, "Boots: On Welcome Mats: Rolled OUT @kelseaballerini is making her #VMA DEBUT!! Watch her perform LIVE on Tuesday, September 12 on @mtv!"

The 2023 VMAs will air live from New Jersey's Prudential Center tonight (9/12) at 8 PM ET/PT.

Kelsea's career has really exploded in the last couple of years as she was recently nominated for the CMA's 2023 Female Vocalist of the Year among country mainstays like Miranda Lambert, Carly Pearce, Ashley McBryde, and Lainey Wilson. She is also nominated for a CMA this year for the coveted Album of the Year honor for her EP Rolling Up The Welcome Mat.

This year (2023), she enjoyed three sold-out legs of her "Heartfirst Tour," and a Grammy nomination in February for Best Country Solo Performance for "Heartfirst."

In 2021, Ballerini won two CMA Awards for her duet with Kenny Chesney, "Half My Hometown" for Musical Event and Video of the Year. Also, in 2021, She won a CMT Music Award for Performance of the Year for "The Other Girl" with Halsey.

In August, she gathered with fans and the music industry in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame to celebrate the release of her extended Rolling Up The Welcome Mat EP.

Kelsea said, "Even when we were recording Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, I knew it wasn't the end of the story. We couldn't know what was to come, so [collaborator] Alysa [Vanderheym] and I left the project exactly as it was when it was written and recorded... and because of the open dialogue I have with my fans, it only felt right to finish this story before starting on the next chapter of my life."

She also directed a short film that accompanied the project.

As we join Kelsea in celebration of her birthday today, we thought we would revisit what we believe are her five funniest songs to date.

"Yeah Boy" (2016)

A fun song found on her debut album, "The First Time." The music video for the song is an ode to the 1990s. Ballerini is shown performing the song in a colorful bodysuit in front of a neon backdrop and a brick wall spray-painted with graffiti, with female backup dancers. When the song came out, Kelsea was touring with Rascal Flatts and headlining her own "The FirstTime Tour."

"Heartfirst" (2022)

This is a song on Ballerini's "Subject To Change" album, which seemed to catapult her to a new level of fame. Kelsea wrote the song with Alysa Vanderheym and Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild in July 2021. According to Ballerini, it was the first song that she ever wrote where she did not come up with the title first; instead, the opening line, "Met him at a party / Accidentally brushed his body / On the way to get a drink at the bar" was the first lyric she wrote for the song.

"Dibs" (2015)

The fun song she named her dog after. The official music video for "Dibs" premiered on October 22, 2015. The video consists of footage Ballerini took while on tour in York, Pennsylvania, Greenville, South Carolina, and St. Leonard, Maryland, performing in front of live crowds, celebrating her 22nd birthday, and spending time with her dog. The chorus sings, Yeah, I'm callin' dibs / On your lips / On your kiss / On your time / Boy, I'm callin' dibs / On your hand / On your heart / All mine."

"Hole in the Bottle" (2020)

Kelsea happily joins the country music ranks with a drinking song; a remix of the song featuring Shania Twain was released five months after the original single came out. The music video begins with a vintage black-and-white style with Ballerini dressed in flapper wardrobe reminiscent of the 1920s. Once the first chorus hits, colored scenes are introduced, and she is shown in a house painting a portrait of her dog Dibs in a field with a couple of friends who join her in lounging on a bed and performing a dance routine with the singer and playing chess with herself.

"If You Go Down (I'm Goin' Down Too)" (2022)

This song is a gem and puts Kelsea in the same company of "fun" murder songs like the Chicks' "Goodbye Earl." Ballerini said when the song came out, it was actually to evoke thoughts of the 1991 film "Thelma & Louise" and The Chicks' "Goodbye Earl." She told us then, "We really wanted to lean into a very '90s country feel, and so we brought in fiddle for the song, which I think to me makes it. That's also why there's a Chicks reference to it, which everyone picks up on, which was absolutely intentional. I didn't want to make it sound like anything else on the record. I wanted it to be its own moment."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.