Lainey Wilson is apparently becoming country music’s permanent master of ceremonies.
The Country Music Association announced over the weekend that Wilson will return to host The 60th Annual CMA Awards on Wednesday, November 18, live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
It will be Lainey’s third consecutive year hosting and her second year doing the job by herself.
That’s a pretty remarkable progression when you consider where she was just a few years ago.
In 2024, Wilson joined Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning as a co-host.
Last year, the CMA handed her the microphone and let her run the entire show solo.
Apparently everybody liked what they saw.
She’s getting it again.
And this year is different.
The CMA Awards are celebrating their 60th anniversary, turning the broadcast into a look at six decades of country music as well as the artists making it right now.
The CMA Awards were first held in 1967 and remain the longest-running annual music awards show on network television.
So Lainey isn’t simply introducing performers.
She’s essentially hosting the birthday party.
The announcement itself was appropriately Lainey.
Rather than revealing the news from Nashville, she went home to Louisiana and announced it during ESPN’s College GameDay broadcast from LSU.
That happened to coincide with College GameDay celebrating its own milestone—its 500th road show.
Wilson called hosting the CMAs an honor and said she couldn’t wait to help celebrate the music, artists and moments that have shaped the show over six decades.
She also enters this year’s awards season from an unusually strong position.
Lainey is the reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year and has already collected 12 CMA Awards during her career.
That’s quite a change from the singer who famously moved to Nashville in a camper and spent years trying to get anybody in town to pay attention.
Now Nashville gives her the keys to its biggest television night.
There’s one other date country fans should circle first.
This year’s CMA nominees will be revealed Thursday, September 10.
That’s when we’ll find out whether Lainey will spend November 18 doing the slightly awkward awards-show dance of hosting the program while simultaneously waiting to hear her own name called.
Again.
The 60th CMA Awards air live November 18 at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC and Disney+, with next-day streaming on Hulu.
