Backstage

On Sunday night (April 2), Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson and power couple Kane and Katelyn Brown reigned as the biggest winners of the CMT Music Awards, which, for the first time in the awards show’s history, was held outside of Nashville, at Moody Center in Austin, Texas.

First-time nominee Jelly Roll took home the most awards wins of the evening (three accolades, including male video of the year), with Wilson taking home two (including female video of the year). Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown’s romantic video for “Thank God” took home the evening’s highest honor, video of the year.

Kelsea Ballerini and Brown returned as co-hosts, and also turned in powerful performances alongside Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, an all-star tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd and the 10th anniversary of the CMT Next Women of Country Franchise as highlights of the performances throughout the ceremony.

But not all the top moments on the CMT Music Awards are broadcast on television—such as some stars spilling the tea on their all-time favorite music videos (Kane Brown’s is Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel,” Lainey Wilson’s is the Lee Ann Womack classic “I Hope You Dance,” and Jelly Roll points back to the era of music videos created under Master P’s No Limit Records, and under the Ronald “Slim” Williams and Bryan “Birdman” Williams label Cash Money: “It was all just bling and parties,” says Jelly Roll. “They would literally just go to like project buildings, have parties and shoot videos. I miss that era.”)

Here are seven moments from the awards that you didn’t see on TV last night.

Cody Johnson Teases a New Album, Collaborations

Johnson released Human: The Double Album in 2021, and he says he’s already hard at work on a follow-up project.

“We’ve got some duets and some collaborations set for this next album,” Johnson told Billboard backstage — and says one of the artists contending to be on the project is none other than Jelly Roll.

“Jelly Roll is definitely sending flowers, trying to get a spot on the project. Not guaranteed, we’ll see how it goes,” Johnson says. He said watching Jelly Roll take home his first CMT Music Awards honors was among his favorite moments of the evening.

“I loved watching my boy Jelly Roll winning an award in country music — because I’m a big fan of Jelly Roll, even outside of just country music. But what’s he’s done inside country music, to adapt the genre — I think he’s been so respectful, lyrically, and sonically. I think he’s doing great.”

Jelly Roll on Why He Doesn’t Plan to Keep All of His CMT Music Awards Trophies

The temperatures in Austin were still in the 80s, with plenty of humidity, as artists finished up on the CMT Music Awards red carpet and made their way into Moody Center. Add in the heat from the stage lights, and a few artists were glistening as they made their way to backstage media area. One of those was Jelly Roll, who briefly removed his ballcap to wipe his forehead before chatting with media — and was quick to joke that he chalked it up to “liquor, nerves, alcohol and obesity.”

During the CMT Music Awards, Jelly Roll picked up three wins — for breakthrough male video of the year (“Son of a Sinner”), digital-first performance of the year (“Son of a Sinner,” from CMT All Access) and male video of the year (“Son of a Sinner”). He was also joined by a gospel choir to perform his new song “Need a Favor.”

But the singer-songwriter isn’t planning on keeping all three of them — something he learned from Texan Cody Johnson, who picked up two CMT Music Awards trophies in 2022 and this year won CMT performance of the year (from his 2022 CMT Music Awards performance of “’Til You Can’t”).

“I seen this last year when it happened and Cody won,” Jelly Roll told Billboard backstage. “I asked him later what he did [with his award] and he said he gave it to his guitar player. I thought, ‘Man, if I win I wanna do the same thing, man. Maybe me and him, maybe he can start something and I can push it over the edge.”

On June 2, Jelly Roll will release his next album, Whitsitt Chapel, and he says fans can expect a slightly different sound from the new project.

“There’s still a lot of the pain that I sing about, but there’s a lot of redemption on this album,” he added. “There’s a lot of tempo on this album — I’ve never had tempo on an album. I normally stay right in the 76 [beats per minute] range and keep it nice, slow and down the middle. But this is going to be fun.”

Megan Moroney on Her Touring Must-Haves and Making Music Videos

Jelly Roll wasn’t the only one feeling the heat and humidity as he entered the media area.

“There’s boob sweat,” Megan Moroney quipped as she entered the backstage media area at Moody Center, wearing a stunning “Lucky” green dress and matching shoes.

Texas temperatures weren’t the only thing sizzling, as Moroney took home her first CMT Music Award win, the breakthrough female video of the year honor, for her debut video clip “Tennessee Orange.”

“With the discovery of ‘Tennessee Orange,’ we really wanted to play into that with the video,” Moroney told Billboard backstage. “When we met with the director [Jason Lester], I was like, ‘Either we could go to [Knoxville, Tennessee’s] Neyland Stadium and have me wear a Tennessee jersey with a guitar onstage and it’ll look cool, but it’s charting in areas that don’t care about Georgia or Tennessee football, because they are relating to it as a love song, so we leaned more into that . It’s a special video.”

Moroney is also gearing up for the release of her debut album, Lucky, on May 5 and will hit the road again in September on The Lucky Tour, inspired by the album’s title. Moroney also shared a few of her must-haves when she’s on the road.

“I must have Red Bull, and I eat a lot of Doritos. And of course I have to have clip-in extensions — shoutout Cashmere,” she added, running her hands over her long blonde hair. “And boots. Lots of boots.”

Lainey Wilson Talks That Alanis Morissette Collaboration

Lainey Wilson took home collaborative video of the year (for “Wait in the Truck” with HARDY), as well as female video of the year (for “Heart Like a Truck”) at Sunday evening’s CMT Music Awards. But she was also part of a stellar on-stage lineup, as she joined seven-time Grammy winner Alanis Morissette (along with Madeline Edwards, Ingrid Andress and Morgan Wade) for a performance of Morissette’s 1995 hit “You Oughta Know,” to celebrate the 10th anniversary of CMT’s “Next Women of Country” franchise.

“I think all the girls were a little nervous, but super excited,” Wilson told Billboard of the performance while backstage. “We couldn’t believe that we were getting to have the opportunity to share the stage with somebody like her. She’s a bada–, that’s the best word for it. So we were all up there trying to channel our inner bada–es too.”

Wilson also discussed her own favorite music video, Lee Ann Womack’s 2000 clip for “I Hope You Dance.”

“I remember the little girls dancing around, and when I was watching that video as a little girl, it made me feel like I could do anything I set my mind to … and CMT has been a huge part of why I’ve even dreamed of any of this. I remember sitting there in front of the TV, just watching for hours, and it’s crazy. Now they’ve welcomed me right on in.”

HARDY Talks Acting Aspirations

HARDY and Wilson took home the CMT collaborative video of the year, for their video “Wait in the Truck.” Backstage at the CMT Music Awards, HARDY told Billboard that watching Wilson’s acting talent inspired him during the making of the video.

“The first scene we shot for the whole video was her performance shot in the courtroom and I got to see it. After like two takes, I was like, ‘D–n, dude. She’s really good,’ and it inspired me. After that first shot, we really just dug into our own characters, but she really inspired me because she just killed it from the beginning.”

HARDY says he, like his duet partner (and Yellowstone actor) Wilson, would like to give acting a shot one day.

“I would love to,” he tells Billboard. “I’ve always been inspired by Doyle from [the 1996 film] Sling Blade [who was portrayed by country entertainer Dwight Yoakam], a dark, drunk piece of s–t kind of guy. I don’t think I’m that kind of person, but I think that would be a fun person to kind of dig into. But something really redneck would be up my alley too, for sure.”

He names “Typical” by Mutemath as one of his all-time favorite music videos. “They learned to play and sing the song in reverse,” HARDY says. “They filmed the whole music video in reverse so when they edited the music video they just reversed that and played it forward, and it was so unique. To process that is insane.”

Kelsea Ballerini Shows RuPaul’s Drag Race Alumni the Love

Kelsea Ballerini welcomed RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni including Manila Luzon, Kennedy Davenport, Jan Sport and Olivia Lux during her performance of “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too).” But her support for her onstage collaborators didn’t end when the music did.

As they were walking offstage, Ballerini bowed down to the drag queens and then raised her arms to encourage the crowd to cheer louder for the queens as they exited the stage.

Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown Talk Follow-Up to ‘Thank God’

When contemplating a follow-up to their No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit collaboration “Thank God,” Katelyn Brown said there is nothing in the works at the moment.

“For me and Kane, we’re not planners,” she told Billboard backstage. “We didn’t plan out ‘Thank God.’ Everything has be organic — so I think we just gotta get in there, get creative and see what we come up with.”

“It does have to beat ‘Thank God,’ though,” Kane added with a grin.

“We’re gonna have to try and top it,” Katelyn added with a laugh. “It’s like, ‘Okay, the bar’s high. How do we top this?’ It’s all good, I like the challenge.”