Morgan Evans is detailing the journey of releasing his vulnerable song "Over For You" about his divorce from Kelsea Ballerini in a new, five-part documentary series released via CMT on Feb. 28. The documentary was directed by Peter John, and it takes fans back to his home country of Australia, introduces his family and shares behind-the-scenes moments from the night he debuted the song at the CMC Rocks Festival in front of a crowd of 22,000 people.
Upon announcing the documentary, Evans shared that he began planning the project before his divorce from Ballerini, and what was supposed to be a series documenting his tour ended up capturing some of the "most vulnerable" moments of his life.
"The whole idea was to document the biggest show of my career, playing the CMC Rocks Festival in Australia and headlining it," Evans said, according to CMT. "The original focus (of the documentary) was on the music and coming home, and that's what it's about. But it's not like I could pretend like something wasn't going on. That's the journey of what happened in that moment of my life."
Evans debuted the song at the CMC Rocks QLD festival in Australia on Sept. 24, and he wrote it one week before the performance. The performance went viral, and Evans' label soon released the live version of the song followed by the official single. The singer says he was hesitant to share the song, but has been rewarded by the stories of fans relating to the song through their own life situations.
"It sort of became everyone else's for their own situation in life," Evans told CMT. "The most rewarding part of having released this song is the connection that I've had with people going through something or that it's helping them through or helping them to explain a time in their life or any of those things. When I woke up the next day and realized that the song had made its way into a lot of other people's lives already, I felt like it sort of became a responsibility to."
The documentary comes on the heels of Ballerini's own creative response to their divorce. On Feb. 14, she released a six-song EP and accompanying short film called Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which details the factors leading up to their divorce. The singer also made a recent appearance on the podcast, Call Her Daddy, during which she spilled more details about the split. Evans shared his disagreement with claims made by his ex-wife in the podcast in a statement shared to Instagram one day before the episode's release.
"It's really sad for me to see this person, who I spent so much of my life with, and loved with all my heart, saying things that aren't reality and that leave out what really happened," he wrote. "She knows I'm not the type of guy to speak on these things publicly."
"If this is what she needs to heal, I hope it helps," he adds. "All I ask is that if you're on my pages, please don't be mean. Don't be mean to Kelsea, don't be mean to each other. Life's too short."
