Michael Ray Says Assumptions He Featured a Carly Pearce Lookalike in 'Get Her Back' Music Video Aren't True (Exclusive)

The country singer opens up to PEOPLE in this week's issue about his new EP 'Dive Bars & Broken Hearts'

When Michael Ray released the music video for his single "Get Her Back" in April, fans were quick to notice the clip's film noir stylings and mystery storyline.

They also noticed something else: Ray’s blonde co-star in the music video looked an awful lot like Carly Pearce, the country singer to whom he was married for eight months.

In this week's issue of PEOPLE, Ray, 35, explains that the woman in the video is his friend Danielle Cell, and that any resemblance to Pearce, 33, is nothing more than coincidence.

"Oh yeah. That's what they say," he says of fans noting the resemblance. "Danielle's a good friend of mine. We called her because we knew that she would deliver that video the way that we needed to. People are assuming stuff, but we weren’t trying to push anything."

Ray adds that his goal with the project was to make it feel like a movie: "We had a great time doing it. It was fun."

"Get Her Back" is one of six new songs that will feature on Ray’s upcoming EP Dive Bars & Broken Hearts, which is set for release on Friday.

The music video features the country star as a man trying to clear his name in the mysterious death of an ex, played by Cell. The video switches between the past, featuring the couple in happier times, and the present, where Ray is undergoing interrogation. It ends with — spoiler alert — Ray's ex calling him on the phone, then losing her footing while wearing high heels and hitting her head as she falls near a pool. The final scene shows Ray calling her as her phone rings, unanswered.

"We wanted it to have that movie feel, and also go back to Travis Tritt, Tracy Lawrence, those videos in the '90s," he says, noting that music videos for his other singles will go in tandem with the "Get Her Back" clip.

"We want to do those cool trilogies with the videos. In a time where we grew up listening or putting on CMT or MTV or whatever and just letting music videos play all the time, that's not the case anymore. So I really wanted to drive people to the video and really something creative and cool that made people seek out the video and see a visual side of the song."

Related: Michael Ray Details the 'Dark' Depression He Faced After Divorce: 'I Was Getting Very Angry' (Exclusive)

Though Ray didn't mean to get people talking about Pearce in his music video, his 2020 divorce, as well as a number of other difficult setbacks in recent years, including the deaths of his aunt and his uncle, has inspired new music.

After experiencing depression, he sought therapy for the first time, checking into a seven-day retreat that helped him make sense of the cards he'd been dealt, and look inward to make some much-needed adjustments.

"Two people were involved in something, and two people dropped the ball individually," Ray says of coming to terms with his split. "However I dropped the ball, I don't want to continue that. I did a lot of introspective work."

Related: Michael Ray Details Toxic Relationship — and Features a Carly Pearce Lookalike — in 'Get Her Back' Music Video

Now in a better mindset — he recently left Nashville for a small town in Georgia and is dating someone new he met through mutual friends — Ray is ready to share his new music with the world.

"Everything I went through the last three years got me mentally ready for where I'm at now. I am not at all the same person that I was then. It gave me confidence,” he says. "This record is, in every way, what I’ve been through the last few years, just me as a person and going through what really matters in life. I don't think I've ever been more excited for music to come out."

For more on Michael Ray, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.

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