Kelsea Ballerini Tells ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Alums That ‘If You Go Down’ She’s Going Down Too During CMT Awards Performance

Looks like country music star Kelsea Ballerini joins the ranks of country performers rallying around drag performers. On Sunday night, Ballerini took to the stage at the Austin, Texas Moody Center during the Country Music Television Awards performing her latest single “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too)” with RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni, including Manila Luzon, Jan Sport, Olivia Lux, and Kennedy Davenport. 

Dressed in 1960s southern attire and with the stage emulating a front yard filled with bright pink houses, Ballerini sang her second single off her fourth album Subject to Change. Flanked by the impeccably dressed RuPaul’s Drag Race quartet, Ballerini’s song definitely made a political statement. Singing lyrics like Our bodies are buried and they’re in the same ditch / So even if I wanted to, I can’t snitch / Thirty to life would go quicker with you, yeah / So, if you go down, I’m goin’ down too, definitely highlight the solidarity with the recent drag bans across the country. 

As the performance continues, Ballerini makes her way across the stage with Luzon, Sport, Lux, and Davenport behind her, hyping her up, dancing, and lip syncing along the way, like a couple of good friends. The end of Ballerini’s female friendship driven performance was filled with confetti cannons and a rainbow, as her and the drag queen crew sing If you go down, I’m goin’ down too.

Ballerini was doing double duty at last’s CMT Awards, as co-host alongside country music star Kane Brown. The CMT Award winner is known to collaborate with LGBTQ+ artists, like Halsey on “The Other Girl” and FLETCHER on “Better Version”. 

Her performance comes when multiple anti-drag and anti-LGBTQ+ bills continue to spread across the United States. With over 400 bills and counting continuing to pop up, including Texas where the CMT Awards were, more high-profile entertainers continue to use their art as a statement of support towards the LGBTQ+ community and a statement of opposition towards the increase of these heinous bills. 

This also comes after various musicians rallied together in Tennessee for the benefit concert Love Rising. With the most known anti-drag bill coming from Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, which was recently temporarily blocked by U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker, artists like Maren Morris, Hayley Williams from Paramore, and Britany Howard from Alabama Shakes sang with and in support of drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community at the Bridgewater Arena in mid-March.

All we can say is yeehaw to all of these country music allies. 

Related:

Maren Morris Dares You to Arrest Her After Introducing Her Son to Drag Queens at Tennessee Benefit Concert

Country superstar Maren Morris isn’t afraid of your bigotry nor your heinous, anti-drag legislation.