Reba McEntire Shares Her Favorite Part of Hosting ACM Awards

Reba McEntire is set to take the stage to host the ACM Awards this weekend on Sunday, April 7, marking her 16th time helming the show.

Like many artists, McEntire enjoys getting to see her fellow country stars all together in one room, something she told The Boot is one of the best parts of her hosting gig.

“[I love] getting to see all my friends,” she said. “It’s like a family reunion there at the award’s show.”

This year’s ACMs will feature McEntire’s very good friends Brooks & Dunn, who will take the stage with Luke Combs as part of the show’s Flashbacks series, which will also pair George Strait and Miranda Lambert together.

“[What makes the ACM Flashbacks series so special is that] it’s bringing new and old country together,” McEntire said. “And singing songs that people can sing along with: relatable songs, songs that they are familiar enough with to sing along. That’s very important.

“And besides, having George Strait and Brooks & Dunn on the show is a big thing for the ACMs,” she added. “Everybody’s thrilled to death that they’re on the show.”

While she’ll likely make a few jokes, one thing McEntire won’t do is address politics.

“When they asked me to do the ACMs again they said, ‘Is there anything you don’t want to talk about?’ … and I said ‘Nothing political,’” she said in a previous interview, via Taste of Country. “This is country music we’re not gonna give that air time. I wanna talk about and honor and lift up country music.”

“This is a family show, we wanna keep all the family in front of the television watching the whole awards show so keep it a nice, uptempo, up-attitude and not make anybody go ‘Oh, she said that about so-and-so, turn it off,’” she added.

Last year, the Oklahoma native took the same stance, choosing to keep things focused on the night and the nominated artists, even cracking a joke about the show’s former hosts Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton.

“I guess they finally figured out that it only takes one woman to do the job of two men,” she said on stage to plenty of laughter.

“We’re all buddies, we’re all friends. Absolutely, it released all the tension,” McEntire later said of the joke. “Especially with Luke (Bryan) and Blake (Shelton) being right there on the front row and having fun with them. It broke the ice.”

The 2019 ACM Awards will air live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 7, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

Photo Credit: Getty / Jeff Kravitz/ACMA2018