Country Stars Who Skipped the 2026 Grammy Awards

Six of the country stars nominated for Grammy Awards in 2026 opted to miss the show instead. Some of them, like George Strait and Willie Nelson, were never really expected to attend in the first place.

But others, like Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton, were a little more surprising.

Both of the latter two have a solid track record of attending the Grammys when they’re nominated, and both of them were up in multiple categories this year. Lambert was nominated for four awards, including Best Contemporary Country Album for Choosin’ Texas.

Stapleton was also up in four categories, and he won Best Country Solo Performance for “Bad as I Used to Be” from the F1 movie.

Neither gave any official explanation for their absence from the awards show. Only one star on this list formally explained why he was missing the Grammys: Eric Church.

Why Did Eric Church Miss the 2026 Grammy Awards?

Church was planning to attend the Grammys but pulled out the day of the show due to illness.

The singer said he was “so disappointed” to miss the awards show, and underscored how honored he was to be a nominee, saying he “respect[s] greatly what this honor means and stands for in the music community.”

Church extended his well-wishes to all the nominees, and said that he intended to be back out on the road for his scheduled show in Omaha, Ne. next Thursday.

Did Country Artists Boycott the 2026 Grammy Awards?

Before the show, an unnamed source told Page Six that Lambert, Strait and Morgan Wallen were sitting out the show in protest of the downturn of country nominees in all-genre categories this year.

“A lot of country artists are not going…They think the Grammys don’t give a f–k about country music,” that source said.

It’s worth being skeptical of the boycott theory. It’s a little surprising that Lambert didn’t attend the Grammys, but Strait typically misses awards shows in general, and Wallen — who wasn’t nominated or performing — had no real reason to be there.

Wallen declined to submit his I’m the Problem album for Grammy consideration this year. Overall, he’s only been nominated twice at the awards show — a pretty modest outing for one of country music’s biggest contemporary superstars.

But he’s never spoken about having any bad blood toward the show or the Recording Academy. Wallen has also generally cooled on awards shows over the past few years.

Keep reading for a full list of nominated country artists who didn’t attend the 2026 Grammy Awards.

6 Country Stars Who Skipped the 2026 Grammys

All six of these artists missed the 2026 Grammy Awards despite being nominated. Two of them won, though they weren’t there to thank the Academy in person. Keep reading for a breakdown of which country stars sat out the show this year.

Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak

‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’

‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source tasteofcountry.com ’