The plot thickens…
Riley Green’s team for Season 30 of The Voice has officially been built, and he’s got some strong country-singing contenders for his first rodeo on the show. Including the double-whammy sister duo, Ferryn & Brinkley, who he believes have a glimmer of his “You Look Like You Love Me” duet partner, Ella Langley.
And boy, has that compliment stirred up some drama on the internet. During the show, when trying to convince the duo to choose Team Riley, he pulled out the obvious card, telling them, “I’ve had some success with duets.”
After being interrupted by Coach Clarkson, he continued, “There was a girl that reminded me a lot of y’all. I took her on tour with me; her name’s Ella Langley. She’s doing pretty well.” Obviously, the statement was pretty flattering to Ferryn & Brinkley, who agreed, “ya,” the chart-topping, arena-selling mega star is in fact doing pretty d*mn good for herself this year.
Riley’s delivery of the line has rubbed quite a few fans the wrong way, with some accusing him of “taking credit” for Langley’s success. To them, Green bringing up the fact that he once had Langley out on tour with him came across as a bit of a pat on the back for her meteoric rise.
For the most part, though, Green has been consistently gracious when speaking about Langley, repeatedly expressing his admiration for her career and the success of their two fan-favorite duets. Just last week on The Zach Sang Show, he admitted, “I bring up Ella a lot because we had ‘You Look Like You Love Me,’ and ‘Don’t Mind If I Do,’ and she was on tour with me so we got to play two songs together every night for fans, and I mean, I could feel the excitement when she would walk out.”
Other fans pointed out that, in the case of his callback to Langley on The Voice, Green’s notoriously dry humor may have caused the joke to fall a little flat. Rather than intentionally downplaying Langley’s success, he may have been jokingly understating just how massive her career has become, because, c’mon, we all know how big Ella is at this point.
Call it name-dropping, call it a token of appreciation, or call it taking credit, but either way, it seems at least one person still isn’t too fond of her fellow Alabama star.
Last week, Ella basically broke the internet after unfollowing Riley on social media. Which, for employed, non-chronically online people, doesn’t really mean that much.
However, for fans invested in the never-ending drama, the moment felt like a pretty big deal and potentially the official end of their seemingly amicable era. Fans also noticed that during Langley’s recent Instagram live ahead of her headlining Red Rocks show, she appeared to be less than thrilled with Green’s comments on the NBC competition show.
During the stream, a fan commented, “When Riley took credit for your success on The Voice, did that rub you the wrong way?!” Langley’s seen reading the comments before being interrupted by her makeup artist giggling.
She then answers one fan’s question about her white eyeliner before seemingly responding to the original Riley question, stating, “ya when that man took credit, no, didn’t love that, but typical” and doubling down by whispering typical and saying “pretty typical” once more.
While she didn’t exactly call him out by name, based on the comments scrolling across the screen, there weren’t many other things she could’ve been responding to.
Either way, I have a feeling we won’t be getting many onstage duets from these two again anytime soon. But hey, at least they’re having their own separate standout years, with Green continuing to battle it out on The Voice, returning to the screen tonight (Oct 12) for the season’s first battle round. Langley is also hitting the stage tomorrow night (Oct 13) in Los Angeles for one of her final 2026 Dandelion Tour stops.
Watch Riley’s comments on The Voice:
Watch Ella’s Livestream response here: