If Taylor Swift looked like she was in complete shock when Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, George Strait, Keith Urban and Brad Paisley all emerged on stage to present her with the Pinnacle Award Wednesday night’s CMA Awards, it’s because she was. Taylor wasn’t expecting any kind of big presentation because she says, “The way it was explained to me is, ‘They’re going to be giving you this award that they gave to Garth Brooks a couple of years ago,’ and it was kind of presented to me as if it was sort of an off-camera thing, which is wonderful, and I was excited. I thought it was gonna be kind of like, ‘And earlier today, Taylor got the Pinnacle Award. Good for you Taylor.’ Our next performance is…”
Instead, she was surprised with a video package featuring some of her favorite people like Julia Roberts, Justin Timberlake and Reese Witherspoon and then she says, “You have the ultimate surprise, which was my former bosses who all took me under their wing and took me out on tour with them as an opening act, all of them walking out on stage together and standing there and (I’m) just thinking ‘This is out of a dream. This isn’t a real thing that’s happening to me right now.’”
Taylor was grateful for the planning and coordinating that must have gone on to pull off such a thing and backstage at the CMA Awards she said, “It’s one of the nicest things that people have ever done for me, to be honest.”
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Taylor Swift – Pinnacle Award 1:06
“The way it was explained to me is, ‘They’re going to be giving you this award that they gave to Garth Brooks a couple of years ago,’ and it was kind of presented to me as if it was sort of an off-camera thing, which is wonderful, and I was excited. I thought it was gonna be kind of like, ‘And earlier today, Taylor got the Pinnacle Award. Good for you Taylor.’ Our next performance is…’ And so I wasn’t let in on the fact that it was a big deal and that there was a video package and that there was this whole thing, with my absolute heroes – with Julia Roberts and Mick Jagger and Reese Witherspoon and Justin Timberlake saying congratulations. And then you have the ultimate surprise, which was my former bosses who all took me under their wing and took me out on tour with them as an opening act, all of them walking out on stage together and standing there and I’ll never forget walking up and seeing them all standing there and just thinking ‘This is out of a dream. This isn’t a real thing that’s happening to me right now.’ It’s one of the nicest things that people have ever done for me, to be honest.”