Lainey Wilson won the  ACM Award for Female Artist of the Year! Wilson, who also won Music Event of the Year and Visual Media of the Year with HARDY, for their “wait in the truck” duet, along with Album of the Year (for Bell Bottom Country), was stunned by a win in this category.

“First of all I want to say thank you to my Father, thank you to Jesus for this,” Wilson said when accepting the award. “This is absolutely insane. Thank you to my family. They’re around here somewhere. My first believers.”

Wilson took time to thank her record label, Broken Bow, along with her management company and other people on her team, before honoring Kelsea Ballerini, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde and Carly Pearce, who were also nominated for Female Artist of the Year.

“The ladies in this category, I look up to you all so much,” Wilson said. “I’m up here because of y’all. Because of people like Dolly Parton paving the way. I’ll tell you what. Everybody in this category didn’t just wind up there by happenstance. They have worked their fingers to the bone. They have put blood, sweat and tears and years into this.

“I’ve made so many sacrifices,” she continued. “I’ve missed a lot of weddings, a lot of funerals — not that I want to go to a lot of them anyway — but I’m just saying. For the little girls watching this, this right here, it stands for hard work. If you’re gonna be a dreamer, you better be a doer.”

Wilson’s “Heart Like A Truck” was also nominated for Single of the Year, with that trophy going to Cole Swindell for “She Had Me At Heads Carolina.”

Wilson was equally surprised — and appreciative — when receiving the Music Event of the Year trophy.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this,” Wilson said at the time. “I just want to say, first of all, thank you, HARDY, for asking me to be a part of something so special. I think it’s really important to sing about things that are hard to talk about, and this is a song about real life. I didn’t want people to relate to this song, but it is true, a lot of people do. This one’s for y’all. We appreciate you so much.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Academy of Country Music