Beyoncé's 2024 CMAs Snub Has Country Stars Divided

It's not over yet, but 2024 has been one of the most successful years in the long history of country music. The genre's most popular artists scored some of the biggest hits of their careers. Morgan Wallen crossed over to scale the Billboard pop chart, while Lainey Wilson, Chris Stapleton, Jelly Roll, and Luke Combs all made inroads to superstardom. Country is having a moment, and musicians from other styles tried to get in on the fun, such as rapper-singer Post Malone and Beyoncé. Usually associated with pop and R&B, Beyoncé is an extremely famous and influential cultural icon. And in 2024, her first-ever country LP, "Cowboy Carter," debuted at No. 1 on two Billboard charts — 200 and country albums — in April 2024. Her joint-lead single from the work, "Texas Hold 'Em," similarly scaled the Hot 100 in February.

Beyoncé's new era was successful by any metric, but it launched a debate about what is or isn't country, and her newness may have acted to her detriment during awards season. When nominations for the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards were announced in September 2024, Beyoneé didn't make the cut. The musician, according to some of her fans, had been snubbed — glaringly or even purposely ignored. But the country music establishment's reaction was decidedly mixed. Here's how some of the scene's biggest luminaries felt about Beyoncé's lack of CMA Award nominations (and consequently, wins).

Weeks after the nominations were published, country singer Luke Bryan, one of the hosts of the CMA Awards broadcast, talked about the Beyoncé snub on Sirius XM's "Andy Cohen Live." He gave a measured response, suggesting her outsider-to-country-music status was a factor. "Everybody loved that Beyoncé made a country album," Bryan said. "Nobody's mad about it. But where things get a little tricky, If you're gonna make country albums, come into our world and be country with us a little bit."

Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter" included her interpretation of Dolly Parton's "Jolene," and Parton defended Beyoncé and offered an explanation. "I thought that was a great album," she told Variety. "She's a country girl in Texas and Louisiana, so she grew up with that base." Parton also noted that judges likely worried that giving Beyoncé an award would be a snub to others who have spent their whole lives in the country scene.

"Beyoncé is Beyoncé," country hitmaker Carly Pearce told E! News at the 2024 People's Choice Country Awards (where Beyoncé had 10 nominations). "I think she has publicly said she did not make a country album. She was making an album, and yes, there's a lot of Western, a lot of country elements, because I think she's grounded in her roots in Texas."

Mickey Guyton, one of the few Black artists working in contemporary country, understood the decision but also lamented the CMA's failure to nominate Beyoncé, noting that it could've represented a cultural breakthrough. "It was a lot of disappointment for me," she said on ABC's "The View." There was such a huge opportunity in that moment to give a Black woman that platform that she so deserves. But there's so much that goes into that, there's the voters, there's so many things that you just can't always control."

The fervor over Beyoncé's shutout at the 2024 CMA Awards eventually died out, but the heat reignited when the actual awards ceremony took place. On November 20, 2024, the morning of the event, country star Billy Ray Cyrus added his thoughts to the discussion. "I was surprised to see Beyoncé wasn't nominated???" Cyrus wrote in a congratulatory post to CMA nominees on Instagram. "Her album was brilliant ... her single ruled. But she knows that. She doesn't need a trophy from the CMA ... or permission ... or approval from any of their judges."