Lainey Wilson earned her second consecutive Female Artist of the Year award at the ACM Awards over the weekend, and the songstress used her acceptance speech as an opportunity to raise up her fellow female country stars.
“Reba McEntire just gave me this thing,” Wilson mused after accepting her trophy from her role model. “Speaking of Reba McEntire, I just wanna take a minute and I just wanna talk about the women in country music. A lot of the women who were in this category specifically are some of my best friends and people who have helped pull me over that wall.”
“There are so many women in country music who have guided me without even knowing it. Before I ever even got a chance to shake their hand and get to know them,” she continued. “They have taught me so much.”
Wilson went on to mention another country legend, Wynonna Judd, whom she said she talks to every week.
“It’s about lifting each other up and speaking life over each other,” she added. “All of us, we gotta, we got to do that for each other. Iron sharpens iron. And so this one right here is for all those women who do that.”
This isn’t the first time Wilson has used an acceptance speech as an opportunity to praise the good work of others around her. As she held the Grammy for Best Country Album in February, the Baskin, Louisiana native compared her musical collaborators to small town farmers.
“I am from a farming community in Northeast Louisiana. A little town of 200 people,” Wilson shared. “I’m a fifth generation farmer’s daughter and I would consider myself a farmer too. And everyone I surround myself with, I think they’re farmers too.”
“But they’re story farmers,” Wilson continued. “It’s about getting up every single day and planting those seeds and watering ‘em and watching ’em grow. And sometimes when you find the right farming community you can have the harvest of the lifetime. And I truly believe that and I think exactly what this is tonight.”
Congratulations, Lainey!
Listen to Lainey Wilson’s Biscuits & Jam interview:
