Lainey Wilson is not just excited about being nominated for Entertainer of the Year at the CMA Awards, but for her friends as well. A new video shows Wilson clapping as the other nominees — Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen — are announced, before jumping up and down as she hears her name included in the list.
The Entertainer of the Year trophy is one of six Wilson is nominated for at this year’s CMA Awards. She is tied for the most nominations with Ella Langley and Megan Moroney.
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All of Lainey Wilson’s CMA Awards Nominations
In addition to Entertainer of the Year, Wilson is also nominated for Single of the Year and Song of the Year for “4X4XU,” Album of the Year with Whirlwind, Female Vocalist of the Year, and Music Video of the Year, for “Somewhere Over Laredo.”
The Other CMA Awards’ Nominees
Zach Top follows Wilson, Langley and Moroney, with five nominations. Riley Green and Johnson have four each. Kristian Bush, Combs, Stapleton and Wallen have three nominations. See a list of nominees here.
When the CMA Awards Will Air
The 2025 CMA Awards will air live on Wednesday, Nov. 19 on ABC, and stream the next day on Hulu.
How Many CMA Awards Lainey Wilson Has Won
Wilson has been nominated for 25 CMA Awards, beginning in 2022, when she was nominated a total of six times. She has won a total of nine CMA Awards, including Entertainer of the Year in 2023. In 2024, she was also nominated for Entertainer of the Year, with that trophy going to Wallen.
Wilson won two CMA Awards last year, both Female Vocalist of the Year and Music Video of the Year, the latter for “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.”
Who Is Hosting This Year’s CMA Awards
The hosts for this year’s CMA Awards have yet to be announced. Wilson hosted last year alongside Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning.
The Story Behind Lainey Wilson’s Current Single, “Somewhere Over Laredo”
Wilson has a Top 15 hit with “Somewhere Over Laredo.” The song is from her latest Whirlwind Deluxe album, out last month. Wilson wrote the song with Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson and Andy Albert, inspired by her frequent travels.
“I spend a lot of my time in the air on a plane, headed to the next town, to the next show,” Wilson tells iHeart. “And I catch myself just looking out the window and dreaming, and thinking, and reminiscing, talking to God, writing songs. And I feel like this song right here, it gave me an opportunity to step back into a pair of shoes that I wore years ago, and I got to tell a story from that perspective. And that’s what country music is. It’s about taking you back to a certain time and place, and memory and feeling, and that’s what we wanted to capture in this song right here.”
The Video for “Somewhere Over Laredo”
It’s fitting that the video for “Somewhere Over Laredo” is nominated for a CMA Award. Directed by TK McKamy, Wilson draws inspiration for Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and the Wizard of Oz film for the video.
“I had the time of my life doing it,” Wilson tells People. “I was doing all kinds of things, pretending to be falling through the air, the sky, and all of these crazy things that I had never done before … I had not had the opportunity to make a video that I felt like deserved that kind of trippiness.”
“When you think about The Wizard of Oz, and you think about the ‘Yellow Brick Road,’ of course, you think of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ and this [song] is an interpolation of that,” she continues. “It’s a way for us to tip our hat to that and acknowledge how timeless of a song that is. It was important for me to kind of draw the parallel between the songs.”
Photo Credit: CMA / Addison Hilton