Do Country Artists Owe It to Fans to Attend Awards Shows?

After stars including Jason Aldean, Jelly Roll and the Entertainer of the Year-nominated Morgan Wallen skipped the 2025 CMA Awards on Nov. 19, fans were left wondering: Is it really Country Music’s Biggest Night if some of the biggest country artists of the year don’t participate?

It certainly wasn’t as if the room was empty. Lots of the genre’s big stars did attend and perform. The majority of nominees were there.

This year’s show produced some standout moments, including a rewind-worthy Vince Gill tribute, a career-making Stephen Wilson, Jr. performance and an exciting shake-up from the Red Clay Strays, who won their first Vocal Group of the Year trophy after Old Dominion had the category locked for seven years straight.

Read More: 9 Country Stars Who Skipped the CMA Awards

But still, fans notice when their favorite artists aren’t at awards shows, especially a show that’s as big and traditional as the CMAs.

And for a genre that’s as steeped in tradition as country music, what does it mean for the importance of the show — and awards shows more broadly — when more country stars choose to skip it?

CMA Awards Ratings Continue to Fall 

6.04 million people watched the 2025 CMA Awards on ABC. That’s about 40K fewer than last year, despite the inclusion of legends including Gill, Patty Loveless, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney and more.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, awards show ratings have plummeted across all genres.

While select performances were criticized and audio issues plagued a few singers, fans and critics generally applauded the 2025 CMAs for returning to a song-based telecast, free of corny jokes or skits. This concerning ratings trend has already cost country fans two awards shows.

The CMT Music Awards (on CBS) have pushed pause indefinitely, and in 2025 there was no return of the People’s Choice Country Awards (NBC).

It’s not necessarily fair to link artist absence to the decline in ratings. After all, some artists have been skipping the CMAs for years — even before the pandemic.

But it does seem likely that some viewers tune in specifically to see their favorite artist perform or walk the carpet, and when those artists don’t make the awards show a priority — well, the viewers might not, either.

Artists Skipping the CMAs Mean Those Big, Viral Moments Don’t Happen

Remember Jelly Roll’s viral speech when he won CMA New Artist of the Year in 2023? That moment was bigger than just country music.

When Jelly said that “the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason,” and pointed out that it’s never too late to surmount your struggles and achieve your dreams, fans listened — and not just fans in his home genre.

The moment became a shareable message across popular culture, and not only did it introduce Jelly to new fans, but it showed the power of the CMA Awards to an audience who might not otherwise watch the show.

Two years later, Jelly wasn’t nominated for any major awards (and blame the CMAs for that — they snubbed him!). So, when he didn’t attend the show, both the CMAs and the fans at home missed out on the opportunity for another incredible moment like that.

Read More: Jelly Roll + Bunnie Xo Skipped the CMA Awards — Why?

Like many other country music institutions, the CMAs value artists who expand the genre’s prominence nationally and internationally.

Several of the show’s special awards, including the one Vince Gill won in 2025, take into account what an artist has done to further country music’s global standing.

And the show itself is a televised opportunity for those moments to happen in real time. If they don’t come to the shows? Well, there’s never a chance for something great to happen in front of the cameras. That feels like a lose-lose-lose situation for the CMA, artists and fans.

The CMA Awards Have a Morgan Wallen Problem

It wasn’t exactly a surprise to anyone that Wallen skipped the CMAs for the second year running in 2025. He’s made it pretty clear that awards shows aren’t a priority, and an interview his artist friend Ernest gave Taste of Country underscores that point.

Wallen’s not the only one to take this stance (looking at you, Zach Bryan and Sturgill Simpson), but he is the only one who’s a regular Entertainer of the Year nominee.

In 2024, Wallen won Entertainer and wasn’t there to collect his trophy. He barely acknowledged his win on social media, and didn’t give anything even resembling an acceptance speech. 

Read More: Why is Morgan Wallen Skipping the 2025 CMA Awards?

That’s pretty anticlimactic for an audience who just spent a three-hour show waiting to find out who won the biggest trophy of the night.

It also puts the CMAs in an awkward position. If Wallen continues to skip the show, voters probably won’t keep electing him for categories like Entertainer of the Year. He might even stop getting nominated altogether.

Assuming he continues to be one of country music’s most dominant artists by touring and chart metrics, that means that the CMA nominees won’t be reflective of who’s actually doing the most top-tier entertaining in the genre.

For that matter, Zach Bryan — who broke George Strait‘s record for the largest ticketed concert in U.S. history in 2024 — could reasonably have been in contention for Entertainer of the Year in 2025, too. If he hadn’t tweeted in 2022 that he wanted no part of the ceremony, could he have won the show’s biggest trophy by now?

Fans Lose Out When Artists Skip

The emotional element of the CMA Awards is hard to quantify, but it’s arguably the most special part of the show.

Country fans are famously passionate about their favorite artists; they want to feel like they know and care about the people making the music they love. And at the end of the year, they want to see those artists’ hard work come to fruition.

Imagine that the CMAs is like a big birthday party. Sure, a birthday party is for the guest of honor. They’re the center of attention. But it’s also for all the people who love them, who want to give them gifts and watch them be celebrated.

In this case, fans want to see their favorite artists get a trophy. They want to watch their faces as they get onstage and receive it. Do artists owe that experience to their fans? That’s subjective. But it is a big part of awards shows, and one that’s missing when the artists don’t show up.

The Big, Understandable Reason Why Some Artists Skipped the Show

Some artists, including Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood and Luke Bryan, skipped the awards show without offering explanation as to why.

Others were a little more candid about skipping the show because they felt like they didn’t get the recognition they deserved. Jason Aldean falls into that category. His wife Brittany Aldean explained that they hadn’t felt “much love” from the CMAs when a fan asked her why they skipped the 2025 show.

Read More: Why Jason + Brittany Aldean Skipped the 2025 CMA Awards

That reaction is more complex than a simple grudge. Remember that most country stars have grown up idolizing the CMA Awards, and when they’re snubbed — especially for several years running — it can feel like a big rejection spiral.

Kane Brown — who the CMAs routinely snubs — indicated that he was having a bad mental health day, and said he was “beating myself up” and “feeling down,” though he didn’t directly mention the awards show.

Jelly had also opened up about being in a tough place mentally leading up to the show. Again, he didn’t directly tie that to the CMAs. But with just one nomination under his belt, a snub by any measure for this artist, it’s easy to imagine that he might have been disappointed by the lack of recognition for him at the show.

In the past several years, the entertainment and sports worlds have made some big strides towards understanding the tough mental toll big events take on stars.

Even if it’s disappointing for fans when celebrities skip those events, it’s worth celebrating that more and more people feel comfortable putting their mental health first.

Do Country Stars Owe It to Fans to Attend Awards Shows?

That’s a complicated question.

Artist absence can water down the excitement of the awards show for viewers, and might even play into a decline in ratings. It could also lead to a change in the lineup for the biggest nominees at the show, since artists who routinely don’t show up are less likely to win or be nominated in categories like Entertainer of the Year.

But some artists choose to skip for reasons like protecting their mental health, and that’s a reason that makes good sense.

No artist should put themselves in an awards show spotlight at the expense of their own wellbeing. If artists sit out awards shows for mental health reasons — and feel comfortable saying so directly — that in itself represents big progress in the way we treat celebrities, and in the way we view the importance of mental health issues more broadly.