Carly Pearce Recalls Filming Steamy ‘If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay’ Music Video With Riley Green: ‘My Lip Touched the Stache’

Carly Pearce recently teamed up with Riley Green for their new collaboration, “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay,” which arrived alongside a music video that quickly stirred up some buzz among fans for its steamy delivery. Now, Pearce is opening up about why Green was the perfect person to bring the song to life and what it was really like filming those intimate scenes together.

Pearce took advantage of a rare moment at home while making pizza to share the story. She first made it clear that she and Green have been friends for a “long time” and that she has always viewed him as a “great artist.” When “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay” came across her path while searching for a collaboration for her upcoming album, Honest Woman, she knew she had found the perfect track and just needed to a duet partner.

She decided to reach out to Green directly and it didn’t take long for him to feel the same magic that she felt when she first heard the sultry, tension-filled narrative penned by Devin Dawson, Seth Ennis, Jordan Minton, and Jordan Reynolds.

“I got through the first verse in chorus and I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ But I didn’t want my team to send a message to Riley’s team. I just wanted to text it myself. ‘Hey, I know that you probably get a lot of these right now, but I really feel like you should listen to this song.’ So I send him this message. I’m not kidding, within five minutes he sends back a text that he says ‘I’m in.’”

An hour later the Alabama native sent another message, this time a voice memo of him singing the first verse.

“We end up sending my vocal over to Riley. He does his. And I’m not kidding you, I got the vocal back at like midnight and I woke up randomly, saw that I had a text and I listened to it and I had full body chills. I knew instantly that it was going to be something special because he absolutely crushed it.”

@carlypearce Been seeing lots of questions about this one! #HonestWoman #CountryMusic #Songwriting #BehindTheSong #rileygreen ♬ If I Don't Leave I'm Gonna Stay – Carly Pearce & Riley Green

The duet came together effortlessly, with the pair of artists trading their emotionally charged vocals to capture the tension between two people who can’t stay away from each other, even when they know there are risks and consequences ahead. But the recording alone wasn’t enough. Carly Pearce wanted to take things one step further and make a music video together.

“If you haven’t seen the music video, you should probably go watch it. I do think it might be the hottest music video that’s been out in the last 20 years. Yeah, I said it. I said it. So I used to love all of the music videos from the ’90s. They were real stories and had a true storyline and the actors played these roles. And so I asked Riley if he would go there with me and if we could play the role of the two that can’t get away from each other,” she explained.

After seeing how steamy the treatment was, Pearce admitted to feeling a bit nervous about whether she and Green could capture that intense chemistry and tension on screen while portraying a couple despite only being friends in real life.

“I was like, oh God, in the first 30 minutes, the scene where you see us singing to each other right here, that was the first thing we did. And I thought I might die. I’ve always wanted to act and have never had the opportunity to. I felt like this was a really good challenge for me to really go there.”

Directed by Wes Edwards, the video finds Pearce and Green in a romantic setting of slow dancing around candlelight that leads to a shirtless Green surveying a messy bed, burned-down candles, and empty wine glasses scattered across the living room in the morning after.

Pearce also reveals that they got so close while filming that scene that, “my lip touched the stache.” But they made it through and after seeing the finished product, she felt complete pride for their efforts.

“All I’m saying is I’m very, very proud of ‘If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay’ And now you know the whole story and now I’m going to eat my pizza,” she added.

“If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay” gives fans another preview of Carly Pearce’s fifth studio album, Honest Woman. The 16-track project, out August 28 via BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville, marks her first release with her new label home and offers a glimpse into where she is in her life right now.

Also set to be featured on the project are “Dream Come True,” “Church Girl,” “You Can Have Him,” “What If You Loved Me” with Molly tuttle and Dan Tyminski, and “She Don’t.”