Ashley Cooke makes shocking confession about new album: 'That's hard'

Ashley Cooke has revealed that her latest album tells a tale of her last relationship with Johnny Clawson.

The 29-year-old American country music singer-songwriter promoted her new album in a talk with PEOPLE magazine, sharing that her self-titled album chronicles her relationship with Clawson.

Cooke said, “I wrote a lot of the songs with my ex and also dated him during the process. He sings background vocals on every song. So he’s very much involved in the project, and we’re no longer together.”

“I wouldn’t say it was exactly an amicable breakup. It was one of those that’s hard, and I hate how everything went down and it just was not fun to go through, so there are a lot of emotions surrounding the record from the beginning to the end.”

“But I’m in a way better place now and [the album] lives as a time capsule for what that relationship meant and what we went through,” the Enough to Leave crooner explained.

Cooke went on to admit that her past relationship has been a “through-line throughout the record.” However, she considers it a self-titled album, as it is about her experience.

“It’s about how I processed all of what happened from the beginning of being friends and having chemistry to going through the relationship to then the end of it,” she said.

It is pertinent to mention that Ashley Cook is a 15-track album, which came out on August 14, 2026.