What a guy.
Last night, Chris Stapleton took home his very first Entertainer of the Year trophy at the ACM Awards, and it was actually his very first EOTY award at any major country music awards show.
The ever-humble Stapleton gave a great speech, saying that he was “in shock” and didn’t deserve it, but he of course graciously accepted the award, noting how grateful he was to win it:
“Well, I am in shock. Truly. Thank you. By any imaginable metric, I don’t deserve this, but thank you. There are so many other great people in this category.
I stand up and I play music. That’s what I try to do every night…I’ve never through of myself as somebody who would win this award, and I’m so grateful.”
He also even got a little choked up talking about his kids, who also sacrifice time away from their parents so they can go out and play music for a living.
You can watch his whole speech here:
But even more impressive than his big EOTY win, which is a massive accomplishment for any country artist and easily the most coveted award of the evening, was that Chris actually stayed behind after the show was over and helped clean up.
Photographer John Shearer captured the moment where you see Stapleton with a leaf blower helping clean up confetti from the evening’s celebrations, and the only other people around are a few stage crew people in the background also getting everything back in order.
John shared the photo with the following quote:
“Entertainer of the Year Chris Stapleton, photographed at the end of the night at the ’58th Academy Of Country Music Awards’ in Frisco, TX.”
A picture’s worth a thousand words, as the old saying goes, and this says everything you need to know about the kind of man Chris is.
Chris’ wife Morgane also commented:
“Love this so much”
And while there’s no Man of the Year award at the ACM show, if there was, he would’ve taken home two trophies last night…
Chris just won one of the biggest awards of his career, and instead of booking it out of the venue to go to some party to celebrate himself (which there’s nothing wrong with, either), he’s there giving his time and service when he certainly doesn’t have or need to be.
Actually, he’s probably the last person who should be doing that, especially last night, and it tells you absolutely everything you need to know about him:
Chris was up against Jason Aldean, Luke Combs, reigning ACM’s EOTY Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Kane Brown and Morgan Wallen in the EOTY category.
It’s always great to see the good guys win, eh?
And of course, he recently gave one of the best Super Bowl National Anthem performances of all-time in February, and is currently out on the road for his 2023 All-American Road Show tour.
I mean, the ACM’s certainly got this one right…
