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Morgan Wallen Skips CMA Awards and Wins Entertainer of the Year After Previously Being Ineligible
Morgan Wallen took home his first CMA Awards Entertainer of the Year win at the 2024 ceremony – but he was a no-show to accept the honor.
Presenter Jeff Bridges accepted the award on Morgan’s behalf at the CMA Awards on Wednesday, November 20. “Morgan couldn’t make it tonight, so I’m going to accept this award on his behalf,” the actor, 74, said. “Alright, let’s hear it for Morgan!”
Morgan’s reason for not attending the show was not revealed and he did not address the win on social media. Considering Morgan, 31, led this year’s nominations with seven nods, fans were surprised not to see him in the audience.
“Is Morgan Wallen sick? Where is he? #CMAAwards,” one person wrote on X. Another person wrote, ““Where is Morgan Wallen? He wins the biggest award in Country Music (not sure why, he was probably 4th best in the category) and he isn’t there. Ridiculous.”
This was Morgan’s third time being nominated for Entertainer of the Year. He lost the award to Lainey Wilson in 2023 and to Luke Combs in 2022.
In 2021, Morgan was banned from being nominated in solo categories – Entertainer of the Year and Male Artist of the Year – after being caught using a racial slur earlier that year. The Country Music Association also banned the “Sand in My Boots” singer from attending the show in 2021. He was still eligible in artistic categories so collaborators would not be penalized, and received a nomination for Album of the Year, but lost to Chris Stapleton.
“This is the first time in the history of the CMA, to my knowledge, anyone has ever been disqualified for conduct,” CMA CEO Sarah Trahern told the Los Angeles Times in 2021. “Honoring him as an individual this year is not right, and he will not be allowed on the red carpet, on our stage, or be celebrated in any way.”
Morgan seemingly addressed his 2021 ban with a post on X after the show aired. “I wake up every morning and thank the Lord for my blessings,” he wrote. “Tomorrow morning will be no different. I love y’all.”
Following his February 2021 controversy, Morgan met with various Black leaders to educate himself. He addressed the situation in a December 2023 interview with Billboard, telling the mag, “There’s no excuse. I’ve never made an excuse. I never will make an excuse. I’ve talked to a lot of people, heard stories [about] things that I would have never thought about because I wasn’t the one going through it. And I think, for me, in my heart, I was never that guy that people were portraying me to be, so there was a little bit of, like, ‘Damn, I’m actually kind of mad about this a little bit because I know I shouldn’t have said this, but I’m really not that guy.’ I put myself in such a s–t spot, you know? Like, ‘You really messed up here, guy.’ If I was that guy, then I wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t have apologized. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I really was that guy that people were saying about me.”
The Voice alum made his return to the CMA Awards in 2022 and even performed at the show in 2023 before going MIA this year.
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