UPDATE (June 7 – 9:00 pm ET): Carly has confirmed the split with a statement. “For the most part, it was great,” the country star told PEOPLE during an appearance at Billboard Country Live. “People date to see if they’re gonna go the distance, and we weren’t. We just simply were not right for each other, and that’s the bottom line. I am on such a beautiful journey, and I am really excited about the next chapter of my life.”
ORIGINAL STORY: Carly Pearce and her boyfriend Riley King have called it quits. “Yes, things didn’t work out,” Riley told Page Six on Wednesday, June 7. “Carly and I have parted ways and I wish her nothing but the best in both her career and personal life.” The country music star, who just won her first Grammy, had been in a romance with the former baseball player for almost two years before the split.
A separate source for the outlet said the breakup stemmed from “trust issues” following Carly’s 2020 divorce from Michael Ray, which came after only eight months of marriage. “She has lot of trust issues,” the insider claimed. “She went through that divorce with Michael Ray, and parts of that she’s still coping with and struggling with.”
The source went on to say that the divorce had been “really hard for her.” A strain for Riley, per the insider, was the fact that Carly’s recent musical offerings were often about the end of that marriage. The breakup songs “took a toll” on Riley, per the source.
Despite the “Hide The Wine” star publicly staying mum on the split, she did speak volumes when she cleared her Instagram of any pics of Riley. Instead, she’s busy social media sharing about her duet with Chris Stapleton. In an album cover art post of the single “We Don’t Fight Anymore,” she wrote, “This song embodies a place that I think, if we are honest with ourselves, we’ve all felt at some point in a relationship, the distance that feels heartbreaking, yet you’re also indifferent.”
While she may be mending a broken heart, Carly has her recent Grammy win to keep her head in the right space. She even spoke EXCLUSIVELY with HollywoodLife about taking home the trophy alongside her collaborator Ashley McBryde for their duet, “Never Wanted To Be That Girl” in the Best Country Group/Duo Performance category. “To see this song do what it’s done over the last year and a half for us and just continue to show the girls that are coming up behind us in the industry that you can write your truth and you can do everything that you want in this business, I feel very, very lucky,” Carly gushed. “And, to do this with somebody that I respect so much as an artist and a person.”