Brad Paisley Says Carrie Underwood ‘Frequently’ Almost Missed CMA Awards Cues

Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood co-hosted the CMA Awards together for 11 consecutive years, during which the number of outfit changes Underwood made each show continued to grow. Because of this, Paisley said that his co-host would “frequently” almost miss her cues to be back on stage in time to get on camera.

“That happened frequently, where she almost didn’t make it,” Paisley said on Watch What Happens Live, noting that only once did his co-host totally miss her cue. “There was a moment one year where Carrie could not get her dress on, and so I basically… had to kind of edit an entire script without her out there and read what would have been her lines, and had to do the math in my head… and then read the whole thing by myself,” he recalled. “She was still getting zipped back there, and she was having a conniption.”

Paisley and Underwood began hosting the show together in 2008 and did so through 2018. In 2019, Underwood hosted with Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton and later announced her decision to step down from hosting.

“I think some of the most fun times we have is in the preparation,” Underwood told Parade in 2017 of hosting the show with Paisley. “We often get to film things in advance, like we did a big Star Wars thing [one year], and have a bunch of people involved. That part’s always fun.”

“My favorite thing is this collaboration,” Paisley shared. “The writing and the creation of our monologue and our hosting. I don’t think it’s necessarily a normal thing for the hosts or host of an awards show to start writing for something four months out, but we get together at the beginning of August. And before that, I’ll inevitably receive a text. I received a text one year in May from Carrie that said, ‘Tim and Faith as Barbies!’ I’m really proud of the things we’ve come up with together, and I think we entertain people. That’s a fun feeling.”

“After 10 years there’s a real awareness of who each other is as a performer,” he added. “In that sense we know each other really well.”