CMT Awards: Carrie Underwood Wins Big

Carrie Underwood extended her run as the most decorated act in the history of the CMT Music Awards with her 20th win Wednesday night, according to CBS News.

Underwood won two prizes at the fan-voted show, including video of the year for "Cry Pretty" and female video of the year for "Love Wins."

"Fans, thank you so much. I saw you guys doing the Twitter parties and getting together and doing your thing and voting," she said. "None of us would be able to do any of what we do if not for you guys. You guys put us here. You guys keep us going. You guys let us live out our dreams."

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Thank you so much, FANS and @cmt for these gorgeous #CMTAwards ! Thank you, @randeestnicholas for sharing your incredible creative vision and talents with me! #CryPretty And thanks @shanedrake for the crazy awesome energy you bring to video shoots! #LoveWins We had so much fun tonight! It all feels like a dream! 💖 #PartyAtTheParthenon

A post shared by Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood) on Jun 5, 2019 at 9:26pm PDT

The Grammy-winning country star also performed at the show honoring the year's best country music videos, which took place at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

Thomas Rhett, Little Big Town and Trombone Shorty kicked off the event with a performance of "Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time." More collaborative performances followed: Brett Young sang "Here Tonight" with Boyz II Men, even blending in some of the R&B group's "Water Runs Dry" for the performance. Sheryl Crow and Maren Morris teamed up onstage, while Tanya Tucker - whose new album will be produced by Brandi Carlile - sang "Delta Dawn" with the Grammy-winning Americana singer, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Lauren Alaina and more acts.

Little Big Town, who also performed and returned for a second year as hosts of the show, talked about the lack of female singers on country radio ahead of the strong female performance. On this week's Billboard country airplay chart - which tracks radio airplay - only 10 of the 60 slots belong to women or songs co-starring a woman.

Little Big Town told jokes at the top of the show and even sang some of "Old Town Road," the No. 1 country-rap hit from newcomer Lil Nas X that was booted from the Billboard country songs chart when the tune was deemed not country enough.

Zac Brown Band won group video of the year for "Someone I Used to Know" and its frontman was passionate as he read his speech from a paper.

"For you young artists, have courage to stand up against the machine, be yourself, work hard and one day you can stand up here and tell all the haters to '(expletive) off,'" Zac Brown said.

.@tanya_tucker and @brandicarlile blew us all way with their performance of “Delta Dawn” #CMTawards #SeeHerHearHer pic.twitter.com/5CLRncZehz

— CMT (@CMT) June 6, 2019

Here’s a complete list of winners:

• Video of the Year: Carrie Underwood, “Cry Pretty”
• Male Video of the Year: Kane Brown, “Lose It”
• Collaborative Video of the Year: Keith Urban feat. Julia Michaels, “Coming Home”
• Female Video of the Year: Carrie Underwood, “Love Wins”
• Group Video of the Year: Zac Brown Band, “Someone I Used To Know”
• Duo Video of the Year: Dan + Shay, “Speechless”
• Breakthrough Video of the Year: Ashley McBryde, “Girl Goin’ Nowhere (At Marathon Music Works)”
• CMT Performance of the Year: Luke Combs and Leon Bridges, “Beautiful Crazy (From CMT Crossroads)”