Reba McEntire Reveals Stance on Politics at 2019 ACM Awards

Reba McEntire is set to serve as host for this year’s ACM Awards, which will mark the country icon’s 16th time helming the ceremony. She first hosted back in the ’80s and has led the show solo and with co-hosts including Hank Williams, Jr., George Strait, Alan Jackson and Blake Shelton before taking a short break from 2013-2017 and returning in 2018.

This year, McEntire is planning to keep the focus on fun, explaining CBS This Morning that she doesn’t plan on bringing politics into play when she takes the stage on April 7.

“We’ve got to keep it light. We’ve got to keep it fun,” she said. “No politics. This is fun. This is entertainment. We are in the entertainment business, and that’s what we’re going to be doing.”

Last year, she shared that she enjoys the show so much because it acts as a reunion of sorts for the country music community.

“It means family, friends, coming together and celebrating what everyone has done the year before. It’s become sort of a family reunion for me because all of my buddies are there,” McEntire said in a report from CMT. “We’re in competition, but we have fun, and we’re always rooting for each other.”

The 63-year-old was on hand to announce several of this year’s nominees on CBS This Morning on Feb. 20, though she wasn’t too happy with one particular category.

McEntire spoke about the lack of female nominees in the Entertainer of the Year Category, which this year features Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Chris Stapleton and Keith Urban, the same lineup of nominees up for the same category during November’s CMA Awards. The last woman to take home the coveted award at the ACMs was Taylor Swift back in 2011.

“It doesn’t make me very happy because we’ve got some very talented women out there who are working their butts off,” McEntire said, later adding, “I’m missing my girlfriends on this list.”

The star echoed that sentiment during a 2018 interview with Entertainment Tonight, as last year’s ACM Entertainer of the Year category also saw no female nominees.

“It’s disappointing that there’s no female in the Entertainer of the Year category,” she said. “But the country music business is very cyclical. It’ll go very traditional with the music or it will go very contemporary. The girls dominate or the boys dominate, so, it’s coming around. I have faith.”

McEntire herself has been nominated for the ACM Entertainer of the Year nine times and won the category in 1994.

Dan + Shay and Stapleton lead this year’s ACM nominations with six nods each, while Musgraves has five and Dierks Bentley and Florida Georgia Line have four.

The 2019 ACM Awards will air live from Las Vegas on April 7 on CBS.

Photo Credit: Getty / CBS Photo Archive