Morgan gonna make a special appearance to honor his friend and musical hero?
At next week’s ACM Honors Ceremony, Eric Church is set to be presented with the ACM Icon Award, an award that’s presented to an artist who has “advanced the popularity of the genre through their contributions in multiple facets of the industry.”
Last year, the award went to Trisha Yearwood, while Church was also on hand to honor ACM Poet’s Award winner Alan Jackson with a soulful acoustic performance of “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow.”
@acmawards @ericchurch had us all in our feels with his soulful rendition of “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow” to honor the legendary @officialalanjackson! 🥹🌈 ACMhonors
But who’s going to be there to honor Eric Church?
The ACMs shared a post recently saying that “the only problem” is that they can’t tell us who the surprise guest will be:
And fans immediately picked up on a potential clue in their post, with many speculating that it was a reference to Morgan Wallen‘s most recent album I’m The Problem.
Then on Wednesday, they dropped another post teasing the surprise guest:
“Just in case you needed another reason to come to the ACM Honors”
“Just In Case” also happens to be a fan-favorite song from Morgan’s album…
That quickly led to many in the comments speculating that Morgan would be on hand to pay tribute to Church – especially since the show is on Wednesday, August 20 and Morgan doesn’t have another show on his calendar until Friday, August 22 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
(Some also thought it was Taylor Swift because it was orange like her just-announced The Life Of A Showgirl album. And obviously Church and Swift have a history together after she replaced him when he got kicked off the Rascal Flatts tour back in 2006. But…no, I don’t think it’s Taylor).
It would be a sort of returning of the favor for Morgan to show up for his friend and mentor Eric Church, who in 2022 was on hand to present Morgan with the ACM Milestone Award.
Morgan has spoken many times on the impact that Eric Church has had on his career, calling him “the best country singer that ever lived” and his “country music hero,” admitting that Church is one of the main reasons that he sings country music in the first place.
Eric has also been featured on two duets from Morgan’s albums, including “Man Made A Bar” from One Thing At A Time and most recently, “Number 3 and Number 7” off of his I’m The Problem album.
The two are also business partners, having teamed up last year to buy the iconic outdoors brand Field & Stream.
Morgan obviously has a frosty relationship with awards ceremonies, not even showing up to the CMA Awards last year when he won Entertainer of the Year. But it seems like if there’s anybody that he would show up for, it’s Eric Church.
The ACM Honors ceremony takes place at The Pinnacle in Nashville this coming Wednesday, August 20, so it won’t be long before we know who the surprise guest is. But if I had to put money on it, my guess is that we’ll be seeing Morgan Wallen there honoring his country music hero.
