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Kelsea Ballerini made waves Sunday as co-host of the Country Music Television awards, with an emotional tribute to Nashville shooting victims and a performance with drag queens as a protest against Tennessee’s proposed laws.
Ballerini, who co-hosted the show with Kane Brown in Austin, Tex., honored the six victims who were slain at the Nashville Covenant School shooting last Monday and recounted her own experience of being in a school shooting in Knoxville, Tennessee.
“The community of sorrow over this and the 130 mass shootings in the US this year alone stretches from coast to coast,” the 29-year-old singer said.
“I wanted to personally stand up here and share this moment because on Aug. 21, 2008, I watched Ryan McDonald, my 15-year-old classmate at Central High School, lose his life to a gun in our cafeteria.”
The singer ended the speech by saying it is time for “real action that moves us forward together to create change for the safety of our kids and our loved ones.”
Later in the show, Ballerini performed her most recent single, “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” accompanied by alumni from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — an act of protest against a proposed Tennessee law that would criminalize drag revues.
