When Thomas Rhett’s name was called as the winner at Sunday night’s ACM Awards for Male Vocalist of the Year, he was truly stunned. He sat in his chair and told his wife Lauren he was not going up on stage. Backstage he explained, “Well going into tonight, my wife and I usually, we usually have a hunch if we think we’re in the running for an award or if we don’t think I have a chance at all, and I think we both going into tonight thought we had no chance for either of those. Maybe that was me selling myself short, but winning Song of the Year was very special because first and foremost I’m a songwriter and I think that’s the coolest award that I could be given as a songwriter. And Male Vocalist, I still don’t know what to say fully. I’m still processing that one just because all the people in that category are people that I respect and look up to more than anybody else in the world and those people have made me want to be a better singer. And so yeah, when they called my name, I just looked at Lauren and I was like, ‘This is not happening and I’m not going.’ And she kept hitting my leg and saying, ‘Go, no, get up there!’ So that was just super surreal. Yeah, that was the coolest award I’ve ever been given in my whole life.”
Eventually Thomas did get up to accept his award, but he was still in shock that he beat out Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban, Dierks Bentley and Jason Aldean for the award. Thomas also had a chance to sing his brand new single, “Craving You,” with Maren Morris on the ACM Awards.
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Thomas Rhett – didn’t think he would win :41
“Well going into tonight, my wife and I usually, we usually have a hunch if we think we’re in the running for an award or if we don’t think I have a chance at all, and I think we both going into tonight thought we had no chance for either of those. Maybe that was me selling myself short, but winning Song of the Year was very special because first and foremost I’m a songwriter and I think that’s the coolest award that I could be given as a songwriter. And Male Vocalist, I still don’t know what to say fully. I’m still processing that one just because all the people in that category are people that I respect and look up to more than anybody else in the world and those people have made me want to be a better singer. And so yeah, when they called my name, I just looked at Lauren and I was like, ‘This is not happening and I’m not going.’ And she kept hitting my leg and saying, ‘Go, no, get up there!’ So that was just super surreal. Yeah, that was the coolest award I’ve ever been given in my whole life.”