Lauren Alaina waited nine years to put her own name back at the top of country radio, and the song that got her there began with a man yelling at her on a Nashville sidewalk. "All My Exes," her duet with Chase Matthew, reached No. 1 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart this month, closing out a radio run that began when the single and its video arrived on May 9, 2025.
It is the fourth chart-topper of her career, though two of the earlier ones belonged to other people. She was the guest voice on Kane Brown's "What Ifs," which made her the only solo female country artist to earn an RIAA Diamond song certification, and on HARDY's four-times-platinum "ONE BEER" alongside Devin Dawson. Her last No. 1 as the lead artist was "Road Less Traveled," the 2017 self-acceptance anthem she wrote with Meghan Trainor and Jesse Frasure. Big Loud Records now counts her among five women to top country radio in 2026.
"This one hits different," Alaina said in a statement from the label. "It feels so incredible to be 15 years into this amazing career and be back in the number one spot. There were many days where I wasn't sure if I would ever get up there again, but I never gave up. My fans never gave up. My friends at country radio never gave up. My family at Big Loud fought and believed and helped make my dreams come true once again. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen. I've been crying off and on for days now. I love y'all so much."
She wrote the song with Jimmie Gutch, Ben Johnson and Whitney Phillips, drawing on a relationship from her early twenties. "I wrote 'All My Exes' about a relationship I had that was, let's just say not my best relationship," she told ABC Audio. "And we were fighting down on Broadway, actually. Everybody's had a fight down on Broadway, right? If you've been to Nashville, you have." She built the song from what he said to her that night, answering each charge by noting that plenty of men before him had said it too.
The duet partner came through her marriage. Her husband, Cam Arnold, played the demo for Matthew while the two were on the road, without telling his wife. "Cameron played this song for Chase and was like, 'I need you to do this song with my wife,'" Alaina told Country Now. She later pitched the track to Matthew herself, not knowing he had already heard it.
The pairing paid off early, posting the biggest first-week streaming numbers of her career and becoming the most-added song at country radio, a distinction it held for two straight weeks. The climb that followed was slower. By April 2026 the record was still in the 30s on the airplay charts, and as it climbed the two singers kept posting videos asking fans to call their stations and request it.
"All My Exes" also anchors Stages, the 16-song album Big Loud released Aug. 28 and her first full-length since 2021's Sitting Pretty on Top of the World. Joey Moi, Ben Johnson, Jacob Durrett, Mikey Reaves and Adam James split production. The tracklist moves through three acts titled The Dreaming, The Breaking and The Becoming, the last shaped by the birth of her daughter, Beni Doll, in June 2025. Another collaboration on the record, "Never Been In Love" with childhood friend Kane Brown, became her highest streaming debut after the two performed it on Live with Kelly and Mark. That gives Big Loud a second duet to work this fall, while labelmate Ashley Cooke rolls out her first holiday EP.
The Stages Tour is in its final stretch. Alaina plays the Eat to the Beat series in Orlando on Oct. 26 and 27, then heads to the Roxian Theatre in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 5, the Arbogast Performing Arts Center in Troy, Ohio, on Nov. 6 and the Potter Center in Jackson, Michigan, on Nov. 7, with Shane Profitt opening those three dates. After a Nov. 10 stop at the National Peanut Festival in Dothan, Alabama, she closes on Nov. 12 with her first headlining night at the Ryman Auditorium, where fellow American Idol alum Hannah Harper opens. Alaina has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 2022, which means she has sung on that stage before, but never with the whole night billed to her.
