When the 2019 CMA Awards nominations were announced, Carly Pearce was pretty sure she wasn’t going to receive a nomination. The Kentucky native already knew that Ashley McBryde was announcing the nominees, which meant, in Pearce’s mind, that McBryde would be the only female nominated for New Artist of the Year.
Pearce had already dismissed the idea of a nomination, but her then-fiancé Michael Ray wasn’t so sure, which is why he had the nomination announcement on TV while Pearce was making breakfast, where she was pleasantly stunned to hear her name.
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“I was making eggs, and Michael looked at me, and was like, ‘Congratulations, Best New Artist nominee,’” Pearce recently recalled to PopCulture.com and other media. “And I purposefully – to be honest with you, Ashley McBryde was announcing the nominations, and I was like, ‘Well, there’s the girl that’s nominated.’ And I was so happy for her, so I didn’t watch. Because I was like, ‘I’m just not going to watch; it’s gonna be fine. I love Ashley, but there’s no way they’re gonna have two females.’
“And that made it so much better, because I genuinely was completely shocked,” she added. “Burned our eggs. We ended up eating them though, but I just started running around the house.”
Pearce did share a video of the moment Ray told her she was a first-time CMA Awards nominee.
I. AM. NOT. OKAY. 😭♥️ #CMAawards pic.twitter.com/LcU0a1LT0T
— Carly Pearce (@carlypearce) August 28, 2019
“I. AM. NOT. OKAY.” Pearce wrote at the time when sharing the good news.
Pearce and McBryde were both nominated, along with Cody Johnson, Midland and Morgan Wallen. For Pearce, having two female artists in the same category is already a victory in country music.
“Ashley and I texted that day and it was just like, ‘This is awesome,’” Pearce recalled. “‘Cause neither one of us thought there would be another girl in there. So, it was just a really powerful moment for females, and for she and I to be able to have that exchange and be such fans of each other, but also just that pure moment that I will forever have with my fiancé of dying. Literally dying. Just running around the house with my hands up, I had no words.”
In addition to her nomination, Pearce will also perform during the CMA Awards as part of a collaboration among female artists, which also includes Kelsea Ballerini, Lindsay Ell, Maddie & Tae, McBryde and Runaway June.
The 2019 CMA Awards will air live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
Photo Credit: Getty / Mat Hayward
