NASHVILEY, Tennessee ( Associated Press) – Country star Kelsea Ballerini is making a final pivot to co-host the CMT Music Awards remotely after testing positive for COVID-19 before the show.
Ballerini and actor Anthony Mackie set to host Monday Night awards show Aired on CBS from Nashville. But on Monday morning, CMT and CBS announced that Ballerini would remain at home. She is asymptomatic, and Ballerini said CMT is setting it up so she can perform and co-host from her home.
“It’s set up in a way where I can still co-host the awards and perform on the show tonight,” Ballerini said in a statement. “It’s not what we had planned, but I set out to make lemonade out of these lemons.”
Also, major nominees for the night, Kane Brown is tapped to help Mackie — who starred in Marvel’s “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” — with in-person co-hosting. Brown has hosted fan-vote shows twice, including Ballerini last year.
“I am honored to have the team at CBS and CMT ask me to step down as a co-host and I am very pleased to be hosting the bonus third year again,” Brown said in a statement. “Everyone is working hard to make an amazing show for the fans and I’m excited to be working with Anthony and Kelsey and have a great night that celebrates country music.”
The CMT Music Awards will feature performances by Kenny Chesney, Mickey Guyton and the Black Pumas, Cody Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd, Old Dominion, Carly Pierce, Cole Swindell and Laney Wilson, Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban . , The judges are also reuniting at the CMT Music Awards For his first major awards performance in two decades.
Underwood is the most awarded artist in CMT history with 23 prior wins and has a chance to extend her lead with nominations for Music Video of the Year and Collaborative Video of the Year for her duet with Jason Aldean, “If I Didn’t love you.”
