On This Date in Country Music History: Garth Brooks Asked Them to Stop Giving Him the Trophy

He had won it seven times. Then he asked them to stop giving it to him.

Six years ago today, on July 29, 2020, Garth Brooks gathered roughly seventy reporters on a Zoom press conference and made an announcement that nobody in country music had ever made before. He was removing himself from the CMA Entertainer of the Year category, effective immediately and permanently.

"It's time for somebody else to hold that award and know what Entertainer of the Year feels like," he said simply.

The seven wins had come across three different decades. First in 1991 and 1992, then 1997 and 1998, then after a decade-long absence from the spotlight, again in 2016, 2017, and 2019. No artist in the history of the award had come close to that total. And yet sitting on a Zoom call in the middle of a pandemic, Brooks made the case that the most decorated recipient of the most prestigious individual award in country music should step aside and let someone else have it.

The Tweet That Started It All

The decision was not made in a boardroom or after a long strategic conversation. It was made because of a single tweet that Brooks could not stop thinking about after his 2019 win. "There was one tweet in there that really stuck in my head," he told reporters. "It said, 'Why doesn't he step down and have Entertainer of the Year be for the next generation?' I 100 percent agreed."

He had already won the 2019 award in what the industry considered something of a surprise, with many expecting Carrie Underwood to finally claim the title at a ceremony that had been deliberately centered around celebrating female artists, hosted by Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, and Reba McEntire. Brooks himself acknowledged the awkwardness. "It made winning Entertainer of the Year not as fun," he said.

He had first approached the CMA about creating an Entertainer of the Year Emeritus designation that would honor past multi-time winners without keeping them in active competition. The CMA said they could not do it. So Brooks went to the next option.

The CMA Had Other Ideas

What Brooks did not anticipate was that the CMA had no mechanism to honor his request. The organization responded with a statement that drew a certain amount of quiet amusement from the country music press. "The long-standing CMA Awards rules do not allow individuals to remove themselves from the balloting process at any point," the CMA said. "If voters have nominated Garth Brooks in the first round, his name will appear on the second ballot."

In other words, the man who wanted to give the trophy away could not actually do so. The CMA's voting members would decide, as they always had, and Brooks's gesture was essentially advisory. He would not win in 2020, Eric Church did, and he has not won since, either because voters honored the spirit of his request or simply because a new generation of artists had arrived to claim the award.

What It Says About the Man

The gesture was quintessentially Garth Brooks. He is the best-selling solo artist in American music history. He has nine Diamond-certified albums. He has toured at a scale that puts him among the highest-earning entertainers in the world in any genre. By any rational measure, he had nothing to prove and nothing to gain by stepping aside.

He stepped aside anyway, because a stranger on the internet said something that resonated as true, and he was honest enough to admit it. "The last thing I want to do is seem ungrateful to the CMAs and everybody that has voted for us," he said. "With all the love in the world, all the gratefulness, we are officially pulling ourselves out of Entertainer of the Year."

You do not often see that kind of move in any industry. In country music, you have seen it exactly once. Read his full bio on our website.