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Kelsea Ballerini: ‘One Of My Biggest Dreams’

Kelsea Ballerini was beside herself when she learned she was a nominee for the Academy of Country Music’s Entertainer Of The Year award. It’s the first time Kelsea has been…

Kelsea Ballerini poses in a black dress at the ACMs.
Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Kelsea Ballerini was beside herself when she learned she was a nominee for the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer Of The Year award. It's the first time Kelsea has been nominated for EOTY for any award show.

She wrote on her Insta Stories, "I am absolutely speechless. Being nominated for ENTERTAINER OF THE FREAKING YEAR has been one of my biggest dreams and goals from the very start of this journey."

She added, "I feel so incredibly grateful, and I feel seen by the genre and community I love so dearly. This continues to feel like my ten-year town year, and I can't stop crying happy tears. Wow, wow, wow."

Other nominees for the ACM Entertainer of the Year trophy are Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen, and Lainey Wilson, who won last year's top ACM EOTY honor.

The 2025 ACM Awards will be handed out on May 8. The show will stream live on Amazon Prime Video from the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas. Reba is this year's host.

Ballerini is on top of her game these days as she is simultaneously headlining her first tour and knocking it out of the park each week as a coach on NBC's The Voice.

Right now, Kelsea's schedule is as busy as it's ever been, but the country star told me not long ago about how she makes being crazy-busy work. She admitted, "It's hard. It's really hard, actually. I feel like I've learned over the last few years that it's really good for me to like, to get really busy and sprint and then have a week where I can just decompress and think about it."

She added, "I also feel like I've been really lucky to surround myself in my life personally and with music, with people who celebrate with me, and also feel when things don't work with me. We just let ourselves win or lose together."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.