In 2025, both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music agreed: Lainey Wilson is without a doubt the entertainer of the year.
Lainey lived up to the title, representing the genre on the national stage, first performing as part of the Quincy Jones tribute during the Grammys in February. In September, she’d anchor the in memoriam segment at the Emmys, performing “Go Rest High on That Mountain” with Vince Gill.
In February, Lainey not only topped the chart with her eighth #1, “4x4xU,” she marked a personal milestone, getting engaged to longtime boyfriend Devlin “Duck” Hodges at George Jones‘ mansion near Nashville. So far, they haven’t revealed their plans to tie the knot.
March was officially the beginning of the Whirlwind, as Lainey set her so-named tour in motion in Zurich, Switzerland. The trek would arrive in the States by August, playing nearly 50 shows by November.
The month would also preview Lainey’s future as an awards favorite in 2025, emerging with seven nominations at the 60th ACMs.
“The girls are kicking down some barn doors and I like it,” she said at the Texas ceremony in May, as she took home album, artist-songwriter, female artist and entertainer. She also debuted “Trailblazer” with Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert, a song that would go on to be nominated for a Grammy.
Later in May, Lainey debuted “Somewhere Over Laredo” on the AMAs, a preview of August’s expanded edition of Whirlwind, which arrived to mark its one-year birthday. By December, it would become her ninth #1.
By July, the bell-bottomed hitmaker had left her mark on the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, as her Tough As Nails exhibit started its run, which continues through June 2026.
Lainey once again led the noms for the 59th CMAs in September, following in the footsteps of Dolly Parton and Reba to host the show solo in November. She’d go home with trophies for entertainer, album and female vocalist for the fourth time in a row.
In 2026 Lainey will take her tour Down Under in February, before making her big-screen debut in March, with a role in Colleen Hoover‘s Reminders of Him. She’ll hit the road in the U.S. soon after, with fans anxious for new music, as Whirlwind approaches it second anniversary.
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