Lainey Wilson took home the prestigious entertainer of the year honors at the 2024 ACM Awards, produced by Dick Clark, which took place at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, TX on Thursday night (May 16).
After enjoying a laugh at their own expense by noting that they had won the award 40 years earlier, country greats Alabama presented the award to an overwhelmed-looking Wilson. “These past few years for us has just been a complete whirlwind,” raved the Billboard cover star, clearly choking back tears. “I’ve been in Nashville 13 years doing this.”
She want on to tell the crowd about a memory from her childhood: “I remember being a little girl, and climbing out on the top of the roof,” she began. “I’d count all the stars, and I’d see the planes flying over our town of 200 people, and I’d dream of being up in one of those planes.” She continued: “The funny thing is I still feel like that little girl … I still look at the stars, but I’m a little more eye-level with them now.”
The win was Wilson’s third of the night, after she also took home female artist of the year and event of the year earlier in the evening, the latter for her Jelly Roll duet “Save Me.” She also kicked off the awards with a cover of Little Texas’ “God Blessed Texas” that transitioned into her own “Hang Tight Honey.”
It was Wilson’s first time ever being nominated in the entertainer of the year category — making her the first winner to triumph in their first nomination since Thomas Rhett, when he shared the honors with Carrie Underwood in 2020.
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