Lainey Wilson delivered a powerful, emotional acceptance speech when she took home the evening’s top honor, Entertainer of the Year, during the 57th annual CMA Awards on Wednesday night (November 8). The “Heart Like A Truck” megastar also took home the Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year (Bell Bottom Country) categories, in addition to Musical Event of the Year and Music Video of the Year awards for her collaboration with HARDY, “wait in the truck.”
Wilson took the stage to thank her family, friends and others when she took the stage to share her acceptance speeches (and encouraged others with her determined mentality: “If somebody tells me I can’t do it, hold my beer. Watch this.”).
“This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s the only thing I know how to do,” Wilson said as she accepted her Entertainer of the Year Award, presented by Keith Urban. “We have played — I think at the end of the year, we have played about 186 shows this year, and we’ve worked our butts off this year and so many years in between. I’ve been in this town for 12 and a half years, and it finally feels like country music is starting to love me back. I love it with my whole heart.
“It’s really, really wild,” she continued. “I guess 9 might be my lucky number because that’s how many times we were nominated for the CMAs this year, but it’s also the year that I wrote my first song. It’s the year that I got my first pair of bell bottoms. It’s the year that my mom and daddy brought me to Nashville for the very first time, and took me to the Grand Ole Opry for the first time. It’s the year that my mom and daddy brought home this horse named Tex, and the horse, it was wild and it needed breaking. And they put me on the back of that thing and said, ‘you better hold on, you better ride,’ and I tell you what, there were times where I was crying and I wants to get down. I’m like, ‘let me off the back of this thing,’ but y’all, every time it would start bucking I’d hold on a little bit tighter, and I think that right there is one of the things that prepared me for this ride, because it is wild. Thank y’all for letting me be me, and thank y’all for giving me this opportunity.”
Martina McBride presented Wilson with the Female Vocalist of the Year honor, marking the “Hold My Halo” artist’s second win in that category. Wilson took the stage and dedicated the victory to “all of the hard-working ladies,” and to shared a message for young girls watching her.
“This one right here, y’all. This is for all of the hard-working ladies that I know, that I don’t know. I see you,” Wilson said. “And also, I just wanna share something with y’all. For all you little girls watching and the ones that are here tonight, too, it’sa something that I’m doing. I’m getting up every single day and I’m looking at myself in the mirror and I’m saying ‘I am beautiful, I am smart, I am talented, I am Godly, I am fearless.’ If somebody tells me I can’t do it, hold my beer. Watch this. Us girls, y’all, we’ve been having to blaze trails from the very, very beginning, and I just wanna say thank you so much for letting me be a part of that, and here’s to all the ladies who blaze trails every single dang day of their life.”
Wilson’s Album of the Year honor, presented by Darius Rucker and Paula Abdul, comes more than one year after the release of her highly-anticipated album, Bell Bottom Country, a nod to Wilson’s signature style. The Baskin, Louisiana-born country artist said it was her small hometown that inspired her passion for storytelling through her music:
“I tell you what, I feel like my love for storytelling truly came from being from Baskin, that town of 200 people, where there’s not a whole lot to do. I mean, you sit around the kitchen table and you tell the same old stories you’ve been hearing for years. The kind of stories that get better every single time you hear them. Stories that make you laugh, make you cry, make you wanna drink a beer, just make you feel something. That’s what we wanted to do with this record.”
Wilson also took the stage to deliver a fiery performance of “Wildflowers and Wild Horses,” one of the fan-favorite anthems on her award-winning sophomore album, Bell Bottom Country. Originally a 14-track project, Bell Bottom Country included “Heart Like A Truck,” “Watermelon Moonshine,” a cover of “What’s Up (What’s Going On)” and other highlights. Wilson added two more tracks to the album, “New Friends” and “Smell Like Smoke,” after making her acting debut in the smash-hit series Yellowstone. The 57th CMA Awards is set to air live on ABC from Bridgestone Arena in Downtown Nashville, Tennessee, beginning at 8pm ET/7pm CT. It’s also available to listen on iHeartCountry Radio and on iHeartRadio Country stations nationwide. If you miss the live broadcast, the three-hour show is available next day on Hulu.