Ashley McBryde has revealed the heartfelt reason she has decided to skip the 2022 CMT Music Awards – despite being nominated for her collaboration with Carly Pearce.
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The country music singer is up for Collaborative Video of the Year alongside Carly for their duet, Never Wanted To Be That Girl, but will not be among the star-studded guests at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium on Monday.
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Speaking exclusively to HELLO! US, Ashley revealed that she will instead be watching the ceremony at home with her mom after reuniting with her family for the first time in over a year.
"I won't get to go [to the CMT Awards] this time. I haven't seen my family; I didn't get to see them over the holidays, so it's been well over a year since I've seen my family," she told us.
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Ashley explained that she finally has a few days off from her busy work schedule before heading over to the UK for her tour and opted to spend some quality time with her loved ones instead of smooching with country music's finest.
Ashley will watch the CMT Music Awards at home with her mom
"While we've got this little, tiny break before we leave to go to the UK, it's four or five days and the CMT Awards are during that, so I'll be watching with my mom on the night," the Martha Divine hitmaker said.
She added: "That will be special too as we rarely get to watch awards show together - and Carly [Pearce] will be [at the CMT Awards] if we win."
Should the duo pick up the award, Ashley still plans on celebrating the win at home. "I've been really well behaved this year which sounds kind of lame," she told us. "For the CMTs, [if we win] it'd be nice to let my extensions down a little bit."
Ashley and Carly are nominated for Collaborative Video of the Year
Despite missing this year's ceremony, the importance of the CMT Music Awards – which are country music's only fan-voted awards show – is not lost on Ashley.
"Without [the fans] that are voting, we have absolutely nothing to do - we have no job," she said, explaining: "We can't sit around and attend one another's theater shows for an entire year [so] it's a wonderful award show."
Ashley's latest album Never Will (Warner Music Nashville) is out now. Her UK tour kicks off on Sunday, May 1, and runs until Tuesday, May 10. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster.co.uk now.
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