Reba McEntire looks back on her iconic 1993 CMA Awards red dress

Actress and country star Reba McEntire talks with Yahoo Entertainment’s Lyndsey Parker about the revealing and iconic red dress that she wore to the 1993 Country Music Association Awards.

Video Transcript

LYNDSEY PARKER: We're coming up on the 30th anniversary of the CMA Awards. And I don't remember this first hand, but I've read that when you were what I think was a perfectly appropriate red dress. Like, it was a scandal in Nashville that you were wearing a, I guess, what they considered to be a sexy dress. What happened? What was the story there?

REBA MCENTIRE: Well, the story was Sandy Spica had made it for me and we had one fitting at the office. And I said, now Sandy, you are going to fill this in here, aren't you? She said, oh yeah. Yeah, we'll fill it in with rhinestones. It'll be real sparkly. I said, great. So we were out at the Grand Ole Opry House and I tried it on and I looked in the mirror and I said, Sandy, this is still really low cut. She said, I think it's the lighting in here. I said, OK. So I walked down the hall and I was going to go stage left. And Kris Christofferson is walking towards me and he goes, wow, you look beautiful tonight. I said, Thank you so much. Yeah, it's OK. So I got stage left and I'm getting ready, and I walk out first and I hear the crowd go--

[GASPING]

--and I thought, dang, I look good.

LYNDSEY PARKER: You did.

REBA MCENTIRE: And Suzy, she and mama were in the audience and mama just grabbed her arm and said, oh Suzy. And so I sang the song. Here comes Linda Davis out. She does her part and it's all over. So after the show, we go back to the office and meet up with mama, and daddy, and everybody.

Daddy comes over to me. He said, Reba, did you have that dress on backwards? So I guess it was a little low.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Yeah, but honestly, I mean, maybe I'm looking at it through the context of award show dresses now.

REBA MCENTIRE: Oh, now, shoot, that's granny stuff compared to what-- Well, back then, no, I was pretty straight-laced. I'm sure it shocked everybody that I would do a low dress. It was pretty scandalous for me.

LYNDSEY PARKER: What was the reaction to it? Obviously, maybe thankfully, there was no social media then, or internet, for that matter, really, but surely, it got back to you. Was there any kind of backlash to it or anything like that?

REBA MCENTIRE: No. Not that I remember. If there was, they didn't tell me about it. But yeah, everybody was just surprised.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Did you regret--

REBA MCENTIRE: I don't think anybody burned my records or anything.

LYNDSEY PARKER: That's good. So you didn't regret wearing it or anything?

REBA MCENTIRE: Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Do you still have the dress?

REBA MCENTIRE: Oh, absolutely. As a matter of fact, I wore it when I think Kelly Clarkson and I did "Does He Love You" on the CMAs a few years ago.

LYNDSEY PARKER: Oh, my God. And the fact that you can still fit, you're doing something right. You're doing something right.