Are Riley Green and Ella Langley dating?
Green opened up about his outlook on dating — including whether he’s dating his “you look like you love me” duet partner — on a new episode of The Viall Files. Green caught up with Nick Viall and Natalie Joy about how he started playing country music, his experience on the CMT reality show Redneck Island, teaming up with Langley and more.
When asked if he and Langley are “strictly friends” amid desire among fans to see a romantic relationship, Green said, “yeah, I mean, Ella’s probably too smart to date me anyway.
“I think that’s kind of the country music fan, like they love the Tim McGraw and Faith, and the George and Tammy, and I think that people want to believe that,” he continued. “And when we first started having the success we did with that song, I kind of told Ella, I was like, ‘you know, there’s gonna be a lot of things said. But I mean, we don’t really gotta play into it or not play into it. It’s going to be something that people enjoy in the same way that we do when we go listen to those songs.’ So, it’s cool to have that one and have that moment on stage with her every night. And the title track on my album is called ‘Don’t Mind If I Do,’ and that’s a really big song, so it’s cool to have that one with her and that’s a completely different type of song.”
Green reminisced on the stories behind his two duets with Langley. The duo released their viral collaboration, “you look like you love me,” earlier this year. The song appears on Langley’s debut album. They’ve since teamed up again on “Don’t Mind If I Do,” the title track of Green’s latest record. Green said on The Viall Files that the second collaboration was “very accidental.
“I wrote that song on the road and I wrote it as a duet, and I was in the studio and I asked Ella to come by to put a female vocal so I could make sure the key was right,” Green shared. “And I was thinking about getting somebody else because we already had that song together [‘you look like you love me’], and she just crushed it in the booth. She did so good I was like, ‘I can’t think of anybody that’s gonna do it better than that,’ so it’s been cool to have two very different songs that are working really well.”
Earlier in the conversation, Green also told the story behind “you look like you love me.” The viral song won int he Musical Event of the Year category at the 58th CMA Awards last month in Nashville, Tennessee. Langley and Green took the stage to perform that song during the show that night.
“I first heard it [‘you look like you love me’] from a promoter that kind of helps manage her, that’s a buddy of mine, and he was the first person who ever told me about Ella,” Green said. “I was touring in Alabama and he would put her on some shows of mine. I liked her voice, she’s obviously from Alabama, very country, which I liked. And he played the song for me, and it wasn’t really pitched to me like it needed to be a duet. He was like, ‘what do you think about this?’ And I was like, ‘man, that’s cool,’ like there’s something cool about the girl picking up the guy, or whatever. The second verse was like more of the first verse, and I thought, ‘well, Ella’s going on tour with me next year. Maybe if the second verse is like the guy’s perspective or something, then we’d have a song to play on tour.’ I had no idea it would be a hit at all. I thought it might help the song a little bit, you know. …One day I opened my phone and you couldn’t not hear it.”
Green confirmed he isn’t dating Langley, and he also opened up about his current outlook on dating during his conversation on the podcast. Viall asked the country star whether any of his ex-girlfriends have looked him up since he became a successful singer-songwriter. Green said “most of them” have, but “my success hasn’t made it worth putting up with me though.
“I think my problem was, when I was actually old enough and mentally I thought I wanted to settle down was when my career really started to take off. And that was a time when I couldn’t focus on one thing,” Green shared. “I think a lot of people, especially, you know, in that kind of entertainment line of work or whatever, it’s hard to have a relationship. Especially with the travel and just the million distractions there are. So, I thought I’d put my nose down and kind of grind for a couple years and try to get, you know, as much (as I could) out of a country music career, and it’s just continued for about six years.
“I looked at it like, if I have enough time to go out to dinner, I have enough time to write a song and that’s what I should be doing. …The other thing, too, is I barely have time to see my dog, you know, so it would take a really special girl to be OK with the amount of travel and time I’m gonna be gone, and I just, I don’t think I’ve found her yet. …It’s been a crazy busy year.”