Country music took a couple of swipes at Kanye West’s infamous September interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs at Wednesday night’s CMA Awards in Nashville.
Following Taylor Swift’s opening number – a performance of “Forever & Always,” which included a cameo by Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell — CMA co-hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley took the stage and ripped the rapper.
Singing the country standard “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys,” the hosts took a swipe at the rapper, who stormed the VMA stage during Taylor Swift’s Best Female Video acceptance speech to champion Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” video.
“Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to Kanye,” they sang. “Let them pick guitars and drive them old trucks, ‘cause cowboys have manners, they don’t interrupt.”
As Brad and Carrie’s opening monologue continued, Brad noted their show was full of audience members who appreciate and respect each other.
That’s what I love about the CMA Awards — we get along on this show. We’re like one big slightly dysfunctional family. We’re like George Straight Plus 8,” Brad said.
And Kanye’s stage interruption was referenced again later on in the show.
An hour and a half into the event, Carrie told Brad that “Welcome To The Future” was “one of my favorite videos of all time.”
As Brad began to thank his video team, 88-year-old country legend Little Jimmy Dickens walked out on stage to stop the speech.
“Excuse me! Excuse me sir… I’ll let you finish later. Now Brad Paisley, I know you had a nice video and all that, but Taylor Swift made the best video of all time,” Little Jimmy said as the camera panned to Taylor, cracking up in the audience. “You go girl.”
Later, as Taylor Swift accepted the award for Best Female Vocalist, Taylor herself made a barb at Kanye’s expense.
“I want to thank every single person in this room tonight for not running up on this stage during this speech,” she said. “Thank you.”
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