Luke BryanThe 48th annual Academy of Country Music Awards are coming up quickly in April, and the question that’s been on country fans’ minds is who will replace Reba McEntire—who announced last year she’s stepping down from her longtime hosting post-- as Blake Shelton’s partner in crime for this year’s event.
Well, the news is finally out: It’s none other than Luke Bryan!
The Academy had fun teasing the big reveal, running a Twitter campaign promising to “unlock” the new host’s name once it received 25,000 tweets.
Shelton added to the shenanigans before the announcement, releasing a clip full of subtle insults toward his new cohort—whomever he or she might be. He first noted that nobody could possibly come close to filling Reba’s shoes, so the bar was set a little lower in the search for her replacement.
“Maybe if we could find someone who is just good-looking,” he mused. “We fell short on that goal...Finally we thought, you know, if we could just get someone who could read. This is country music, and that’s narrowing the field down.”
Upon the reveal, Bryan himself got his digs in, releasing a little clip discussing how pleased that someone with real “country roots…someone who didn’t move out to Los Angeles” was to be chosen as co-host for the show. Ooooh, burn on Voice coach Blake!
The 2013 ACM Awards will take place April 7 in Las Vegas and will be aired live on CBS. Bryan is a hot choice for the awards show, having just swept the American Country Awards a month ago by winning every category he was nominated in.
Shelton has co-hosted the ACMs for the past two years along with McEntire, who has 14 years of ACM emcee duty under her belt. McEntire gave up the job due to her commitment to new TV series Malibu Country, which debuted in November 2012.