Twenty years ago this week, a 23-year-old from a small Oklahoma town won one of the biggest awards in country music. By the next morning, though, most of the headlines were about somebody else.
That young woman was Carrie Underwood. She’d won “American Idol” in 2005, and she grew up in Checotah, Oklahoma. In 2006 she was nominated at the CMA Awards for the very first time.
The CMAs are the Country Music Association’s big yearly awards show. The 40th one was held on Monday, Nov. 6, 2006, at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville, and the duo Brooks & Dunn hosted.
Carrie was up for Female Vocalist of the Year against four other nominees. One of them was Faith Hill, the Mississippi-born star of “This Kiss” and “Breathe.”
Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter, Miley Cyrus, came out to read the winner’s name, and a fan saved the father and daughter’s turn on stage that night so you can watch the announcement unfold.
Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus present at the 2006 CMA Awards
The name was Carrie’s. At the microphone, she told the crowd that just two years earlier she’d been sitting at home watching these same awards on TV.
But a camera had also caught Faith right as Carrie’s name was read. Faith threw her arms in the air, appeared to say “What?” and walked away.
That clip spread online fast. It made front-page news the next morning.
Faith’s camp said it was a joke. Her manager, Gary Borman, put it like this: “She was being playful while the nominations were being read and playful after.”
Faith also released a statement. In it she called Carrie “a talented and deserving Female Vocalist of The Year.” She added, “The idea that I would act disrespectful towards a fellow musician is unimaginable to me.”
Here’s what most people never heard about.
Faith didn’t wait for the newspapers. That very same night, she reached out to Carrie herself to tell her it had been a joke gone wrong and to say she was sorry.
“She told me that night and wanted to set it straight right then and there,” Carrie told The Boot a few weeks later. Carrie said Faith let her know “she was just kidding and it was just a joke gone bad” and that “she was really sorry for doing anything that might have seemed inappropriate.”
And Carrie wasn’t upset at all. “If I were sitting at home, I totally would have got the joke,” she said.
She even stood up for Faith. “Faith is such a sweet person that she shouldn’t get dumped on for that,” Carrie said.
Carrie’s publicist, Jessie Schmidt, said the same thing at the time. The two women had talked after the show, and they were fine.
Carrie actually went home with two trophies. She also won the Horizon Award, the CMA’s prize for the most promising new artist. BMI noted she was the first to win both in one night since bluegrass star Alison Krauss in 1995.
She’d be back on that stage the next fall, too, and one fan put together footage from Carrie’s CMA Awards nights in both 2006 and 2007.
Carrie at the CMA Awards in 2006 and 2007
Carrie won Female Vocalist of the Year again in 2007.
As for Carrie and Faith, their story got a sweet next chapter. In December 2009, Carrie sang on CBS’s “Home for the Holidays with Faith Hill,” a special that told stories of foster care adoption.