Kelsea Ballerini Defends Stella Lefty’s Appearance on Grand Ole Opry

The internet’s obsession with railing against Stella Lefty has apparently hit a new low. On Sept. 2, the “Boston” singer made her debut at the Grand Ole Opry, and shared a sweet moment backstage with two children who are currently in treatment at St. Jude, the pediatric research hospital.

Accompanied on acoustic guitar, Lefty sang her viral hit alongside the girls, who belted excitedly. Yet the comments section decided this would be a good moment to bring up “nepo baby” and industry plant allegations, her use of interpolation on “Boston,” and whether or not Lefty “deserved” the moment at all.

Kelsea Ballerini, inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2019, wasn’t having it. “Opry member chiming in!! Yes, the Opry is about honoring the legacies and the people that have inspired both me and her,” Ballerini wrote in the comments on the Opry’s Instagram post. “But, from different backgrounds and hometowns and generations, we can find ways to say and sing things that resonate with people that fill the seats…and that is always the goal right?

“This backstage moment is beautiful,” she continued. “And y’all in the comments continue to not honor the people the actual Opry house opens its arms to. It’s about celebration of all kinds of country music…new, old, traditional, current, however you wanna say it. It’s all important, and it should all be able to be shared in our safest and most sacred stage in country music. Celebrate music like the Opry does.”

She also added, “DOUBLING DOWN that this is a video of her singing to St. Jude’s patients. Y’all go get some sleep.”

The internet is a place of free expression, for better and for worse. But the unbridled airing of grievances about a woman succeeding, via what some deem to be unfair conditions, has now infiltrated a post where someone is singing to children battling illness. (Meanwhile, men on country radio have, for years, had success by recording songs that arguably all sound like the other. But that’s a story for another time…).

Cancer is a personal issue to Lefty. When she was 13, her mother was diagnosed with the disease. A few years later, her best friend from high school was too: her mother survived, but her friend did not. Lefty took to writing to help process the loss, in a song that she eventually posted on TikTok. “It just became this thing where I was like, why do people have to deal with this? I wanted to understand it better,” she told Rolling Stone.

Supporting St. Jude has been a longstanding country music tradition. Country Cares for St. Jude’s Kids, founded by Randy Owen of the band Alabama, has raised more than $800 million dollars to fund the hospital and its work.

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