The 2022 ACM Honors took place on Wednesday (Aug. 24). The annual show awarded Morgan Wallen with the Milestone Award.
His friend and fellow country singer Eric Church presented the honor to Morgan in a touching speech.
The Chief told the crowd, “I spent, I spent the last three weeks, and I can’t tell you one story that I can actually tell you. So I’ll tell you this, it has been one of the honors of my career, and my life, to get to know Morgan over the last couple years.”
“Whether it’s on a golf cart, a fishing boat, or over guitars late at night, I’ve seen him go through some things, I’ve seen him mature as an artist, I’ve seen him mature as a man,” he continued. “I can tell you this, we’re very lucky to have him in country music.”
Listening to @ericchurch sing @MorganWallen’s praises is like music to my ears. pic.twitter.com/SZc9acEt9E
— Alison Bonaguro (@alisonbonaguro) August 25, 2022
Morgan took the stage to thank the ACMS for the honor saying, “I had a whole that I typed out, before I knew any of this was going on. The first concert I ever went to was an Eric Church concert in Thompson-Boling arena in Knoxville. And man I just, I felt… it seemed to me like I could feel what he was feeling when he was signing’…I mean, it changed my life. So for you to be up here presenting this to me now is more special than I can put into words.”
“You know, I get to do this in front of my parents who are here tonight,” he continued. “Thank you guys for always supporting me. Man, thank you to everybody that’s on my team, my friends, my songwriting friends, Hardy and Ern, you know… I never really got to hear ’em perform like that, so that was really special for me too.”
“We’ve known each other a long time now, we’ve written 100 songs together, we’ve done a lot of things together and that was one of my favorite moments of all of the ones we’ve had together,” he shared. “So thank you guys, thank you Academy of Country Music for putting this together. Thank you for honoring me with this award.”
“Thank you to God. Me and God, we’ve had some interesting do-si-dos, I guess you could say. That definitely wasn’t in my speech originally. But I really am grateful for the opportunities,” Morgan jokingly added.
“You know, me and my band, thank you to my band, I think they’re in here somewhere. I really am grateful for the opportunities that have been given to me, and just for everybody who’s made it possible, I thank you guys,” he told the crowd. “Most of you know who you are. It’s been an incredible year, just to hit on the awards, so it’s been awesome.”
“Awards are awesome, but my true measure of success is my fans, and I get to see every single night out on the road this year and for many years. So thank you guys for supporting me, man, it means a lot to me. Seriously, thank everybody, I really appreciate it. God bless you, have a great night,” he concluded.
Watch his speech below.
@alisonbonaguro615 #countrymusic #country #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #morganwallen @morganwallen ♬ original sound – Alison Bonaguro
