Underwood wins top CMT Award
Carrie Underwood has extended her record as the most decorated artist in the history of the CMT Music Awards, thanks to her song “Hallelujah.”
The music video for the singer’s hit, a collaboration with John Legend, was named video of the year, the top prize at Wednesday’s show, which aired from Nashville, Tennessee.
Underwood, who now has 23 CMT Awards, thanked her die-hard fans while accepting the honor: “You’re the reason we’re all here doing what we do, doing what we love (and) making music videos.”
Though Underwood owned part of the night — she also performed with rock band Needtobreathe — other female stars, some outside of country music, took over the awards show honoring the year’s best country music videos.
Grammy-winning R&B star H.E.R. and fellow guitar slayer Chris Stapleton had the night’s best performance. They joined forces for a smoky, thrilling performance of “Hold On,” coming off like a veteran duo.
Gladys Knight won over audience members during a performance of “Friendship Train” with Mickey Guyton. Part of the show felt dedicated to Black female voices thanks to the top notch performances by Knight, H.E.R. and Guyton, who was nominated for two awards and presented the CMT Equal Play Award to Linda Martell, one of the pioneering Black acts in country music and the first Black woman to perform solo at the Grand Ole Opry.
Martell, 86, didn’t attend the awards show but CMT aired photos of the icon holding her award and said she was watching from her South Carolina home.
Guyton also hit the stage with Breland, the Black singer who has mixed country, trap and R&B music and had a country hit with the platinum success “My Truck.”
Hosts Kane Brown and Kelsea Ballerini also performed onstage and won awards. Brown won male video of the year for “Worship You” and collaborative video of the year for “Famous Friends” with Chris Young. CMT performance of the year went to Ballerini and Halsey’s “The Other Girl” from the 2020 CMT Music Awards.
‘Ted’ series from MacFarlane set:
A liveaction series adaptation of the “Ted” movies has been ordered straight-to-series at Peacock. Seth MacFarlane
is in negotiations to reprise the voice role of Ted, a foul-mouthed teddy bear brought to life by the magic of a little boy’s wish. Plot details on the series are being kept under wraps.
The first “Ted” movie was released in 2012 with a sequel released in 2015.
Ventimiglia to guest star on ‘Maisel’:
Milo Ventimiglia is set to guest star on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” season four, but details on the character the actor will be playing haven’t been revealed.
The role reunites him with “Maisel” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, with whom Ventimiglia previously worked on the series “Gilmore Girls.” Ventimiglia will also be the second “This Is Us” star to join the series alongside Sterling K. Brown, who appeared in the third season of the Amazon show.
Comedian Johnny Brown is
84. Singer Joey Dee is 81. Actor Roscoe Orman is 77. Drummer Frank Beard is
72. Singer Donnie Van Zant is 69. Actor Hugh Laurie is
62. TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz is 61. Singer Gioia Bruno is
58. Actor Peter Dinklage is
52. Actor Joshua Jackson is 43. Actor Shia LaBeouf is 35.
June 11 birthdays: