Luke Bryan Has A Lot to Say About Carrie Underwood’s Past Snubs for CMA’s Entertainer of the Year

Photo credit: John Shearer - Getty Images
Photo credit: John Shearer - Getty Images

From Prevention

  • Luke Bryan spoke out about Garth Brooks’ decision to remove himself from consideration for the CMAs Entertainer of the Year honor.

  • Bryan said he hopes somebody deserving wins this year, such as Carrie Underwood.

  • He added that it’s “disturbing” Underwood has not yet won the award.


Luke Bryan has some thoughts after Garth Brooks made the decision to take himself out of the running for the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year. Brooks has taken home the honor a record seven times, and said he feels it’s “somebody else’s turn.”

Bryan, who took home the prestigious award in 2014 and in 2015, told Popculture.com that “there’s a lot of ways to look at” Brooks’ decision, but he “did it his way.”

The “Knockin’ Boots” singer explained that receiving a nomination for the CMA Entertainer of the Year is a win for him. But if he doesn’t win, he’s always interested in whether or not the winner is “somebody that’s won before” or “somebody that’s never won before, but they were very, very deserving.”

Bryan has two artists in mind who should most definitely take home the honor: Carrie Underwood and Eric Church. “My thought is, if we go for a long period of time and Carrie Underwood never wins a CMA Entertainer of the Year, that’s quite disturbing for me because she’s done everything you can do to win it in my opinion—and that goes for Eric Church,” he said.

Underwood has been nominated for the honor twice, once in 2016 and again in 2019. In 2019, Garth Brooks won Entertainer of the Year for the seventh time, and the former American Idol winner’s fans were not happy about the snub. Some even speculated that Underwood, who hosted the CMA Awards last year, was even holding back tears on stage.

Bryan opened up about what it feels like to not win the honor in the past. “Hell, I really felt like the best entertainer that year, and there have been years that I felt like the best entertainer and I didn’t win. But that’s just the way it goes,” he said. “I think at some point all artists—I think maybe in Garth’s mind—he probably could be taking people’s slots and how long do you want to do that?”

The good news is that Underwood, who released her “Cry Pretty” album in 2019, has once again been nominated as Entertainer of the Year for this year’s CMA Awards. Bryan, Thomas Rhett, Luke Combs, Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, and Chris Stapleton have also made the list.


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