Kelsea Ballerini is set to co-host tonight’s CMT Music Awards – but not in the way she’d planned.
The country star announced Monday on Instagram that she has tested positive for COVID-19 and will no longer be able to co-host the show in person.
Instead, she’ll co-host and perform from home, while co-host Anthony Mackie will be onstage at Municipal Auditorium.
Country hitmaker Kane Brown, who co-hosted last year’s show with Ballerini, has signed on as a third co-host to join Mackie in person. A statement from CMT says the trio has “lots of surprises up their sleeves and fans can look forward to an epic show!”
The CMT Music Awards air live on CBS (Monday, 8 EDT/PDT).
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“I’m gutted,” Ballerini told fans in her Instagram video. “But the good news is that I’m feeling a lot better … and the incredible CMT family and my team have brought part of the CMT set to my house, to my little bubble, and set it up to where I can still host and perform. It is certainly not what we had expected or planned for, but we are doing our damn best.
“I will still see you tonight on the awards,” she said. “And let’s make some lemonade together out of these very bitter lemons.”
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Prior to her COVID diagnosis, Ballerini described herself as a “country music fangirl” to The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. “Country music’s all I’ve known; it’s the biggest thing in the world to me.”
She also shared a hilarious tale about The Judds, who are reuniting at the CMTs, performing together for an audience for the first time in two decades.
As a 15-year old fan aspiring to a career in country music, Ballerini moved to Nashville and was advised of one rule: “If you see a famous country music singer in the wild, you don’t go up to them.” However, when Ballerini spotted Wynonna Judd at the mall, she broke that rule. She hopes Judd doesn’t remember the encounter.
“I saw her, said to myself, ‘That is Wynonna freaking Judd,’ and immediately took a picture with her. She was lovely about it then, and I hope she doesn’t say, ‘Oh, my God, it’s you again.’ “
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