2019 CMA Awards: Carly Pearce 'Can't Breathe' After New Artist of the Year Nomination

Carly Pearce could take home her first-ever CMA Award this year! The 'Closer to You' singer [...]

By Gayle Thompson

Carly Pearce could take home her first-ever CMA Award this year! The "Closer to You" singer received her first nomination, for New Artist of the Year, a category she shares with Cody Johnson, Ashley McBryde, Midland and Morgan Wallen.

"CAN'T BREATHE," Pearce wrote when shearing the news of her nomination.

Pearce's future husband, Michael Ray, captured the moment she found out she had received her first CMA Awards nod.

"Guess who got New Artist of the Year?" Ray exclaimed, while Pearce can be heard going, "What??" before running to the TV and then grabbing her phone.

Pearce earned praise from a couple of her celebrity friends moments after sharing the news.

"Heck yeah!!!!!!!!!" celebrity trainer Erin Oprea wrote. "So proud of you!"

"YESSS SO PROUD OF YOU!!!!" posted Lindsay Ell, who also received a CMA Awards nomination, for Musical Event of the Year, for her "What Happens In A Small Town" duet with Brantley Gilbert.

Pearce is hard at work on her sophomore album, juggling finishing the record between tour dates on Jason Aldean's Ride All Night Tour, and planning her wedding to Ray.

"A lot has happened to me since I recorded my first record," Pearce told PopCulture.com. "I feel like a lot of those songs that I recorded and that I wrote were just a girl who was searching and was trying to find her way. I will always be so attached to that project, but I think that I've just evolved and matured, and fell in love and found myself more. And just more settled in who I am. I think that you'll hear that in my songs, and hear that in my voice, and hear that in the production."

The Kentucky native admits she feels a mixture of emotions as she prepares to share her next set of tunes with her fans.

"I'm obviously afraid of just – I feel very confident, but you know, a second record can really change the game for you either way," Pearce acknowledged. "I just hope that my kind of evolution is well received, which I really think that it will be, because it's still me at my core. I feel good about it though."

The 2019 CMA Awards will air live from Nashville's Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 8 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Getty images/ Jeff Kravitz

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