2025 ACM Awards: Biggest Winners and Losers

The 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards brought the best and brightest of the genre, with legendary singer Reba McEntire taking on hosting duties for her 18^th time at the Ford Center at the Star in Frisco, Texas, on May 8. This year’s competition was fierce as newcomer Ella Langley led the pack of nominees with eight nods, including Female Artist of the Year and Song of the Year for her and Riley Green’s duet “You Look Like You Love Me.”

She also managed to walk home with a good number of those trophies as well, including for Single of the Year and New Female Artist of the Year. Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson, and Cody Johnson followed closely behind with seven nominations each. For her part, Lainey picked up the awards for Album of the Year, Entertainer of the Year, and Female Artist of the Year, among others.

Wilson is the first person to win back-to-back awards in that top category (Entertainer of the Year) since Jason Aidean scored a threepeat from 2016-18. She’s the first woman to win back-to-back awards for entertainer of the year since Taylor Swift achieved the feat in 2009-10.

As for the big honors, Keith Urban was named the recipient of the ACM Triple Crown Award, highlighting his past achievements in the New Artist of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Entertainer of the Year categories. Urban won his first awards in each category in 2001, 2005, and 2019, respectively.

The prestigious awards was last handed out 15 years ago, when Carrie Underwood took home the prize at the 2010 ceremony.

Voters did deliver a big surprise when country traditionalist Zach Top took the award for New Male Artist of the Year, beating Shaboozey, whose “A Bar SONG (Tipsy)’ had spent 19 weeks at No.1 on the Billboard hot 100 and seven weeks a top Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

Morgan Wallen, Post Malone and Kelsea Ballerini were also completely shut out, despite going into the show with a total of 16 nominations between them. On the flip side, Brooks & Dunn won their record-extending 17^th award as duo of the year; Old Dominion, their record-setting eighth award as group of the year; Chris Stapleton, his record-tying fifth award as make artist of the year; and Lainey Wilson, here third consecutive award as female artist of the year.