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Carly Pearce didn’t holding anything back when she was revealed as an early CMA Award winner on Wednesday morning (November 9), ahead of the evening’s highly-anticipated awards show. Pearce tweeted the “actual footage of me finding out I won this morning,” laughing as she excitedly jumps into the room and starts dancing.
Pearce and fellow singer-songwriter Ashley McBryde have already won in the CMA Musical Event of the Year category for “Never Wanted To Be That Girl.” Pearce and McBryde teamed up on the powerful heartbreak song, portraying the perspectives of both women stuck in a love triangle with the same cheating man: “I never wanted to be that girl/ I never wanted to hate myself/ I thought this kind of lonely only happens to somebody else/ Bein' the other one when there's another one/ God, this feels like hell/ Thought I knew who I was, but it's gettin' hard to tell/ I never wanted to be that girl.”
Pearce and McBryde were announced as early winners on Good Morning America, along with Cody Johnson, who won in the Music Video of the Year category for his sentimental anthem, “’Til You Can’t.” Last year, Pearce won the Female Vocalist of the Year award, and accepted it — with help from McBryde — during an emotional moment on stage. She later said that she doesn’t “know how to fake or compose my reactions to things…I’m like, ‘OH MY GAWWWD!’ The Kentucky part of me just comes out and I’m fine with it. At this point everybody’s seen every ugly face I could ever make.”
The “What He Didn’t Do” artist recently reflected on her CMA victory last year, sayin that this year’s nomination “was really special,” because there are “so many great females” in country music right now. See the full list of CMA nominees here.
Watch the 56th annual CMA Awards live on ABC on Wednesday, November 9 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT. The show will be available to watch the following day on Hulu. Listeners can also tune in on iHeartRadio Country stations. Find more info on how to watch the CMA Awards here.