(Parton photo by Curtis Hilbun and Brooks photo by John Mathew Smith; both from Wikimedia Commons)
LGBTQ ally Dolly Parton will return for a second consecutive year as host of the Academy of Country Music Awards but this year she’s bringing a new plus-one, and fellow ally, to help — Garth Brooks.
The show is set for May 11 and will stream live on Amazon Prime Video from Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. A full rebroadcast of the ceremony and performances will stream the next day for free on Amazon Freevee.
It’s the second consecutive year that the show will be hosted by Parton but marks the first time Brooks will take the stage to host an awards show.
“I am thrilled to return to host the ACM Awards, this time with my friend Garth,” said Parton in a statement. “While I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with him throughout the years, I can’t believe we’ve never had the chance to work together.”
“Anyone with Dolly Parton makes a fantastic couple,” added Brooks.
Both Parton and Brooks are longtime supporters of the LGBTQ community.
“I think everybody is who they are and they should be allowed to be who they are,” Parton said in a 2016 interview with Watermark. “I’ve just always been proud of my friends from the gay and lesbian community. I have gays and lesbians who work in my company, and I have a couple of transgender people, and I love them all as people.”
Brooks, whose late sister Betsy Smittle was lesbian, has been fighting for LGBTQ rights since the 1990s. He won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Recording in 1993 for his song “We Shall Be Free,” in which he sings “When we’re free to love anyone we choose, When this world’s big enough for all different views, When we all can worship from our own kind of pew, Then we shall be free.”
In a 1999 interview with George magazine, Brooks said “If you’re in love, you’ve got to follow your heart and just trust that God will explain to us why we sometimes fall in love with people of the same sex.”
More recently, Parton made headlines with singer and goddaughter Miley Cyrus, when a song they duet on was pulled from a children’s show at an elementary school in Wisconsin. The song “Rainbowland” was pulled from a first-grade concert at Heyer Elementary School in Waukesha because the song “could be perceived as controversial” for promoting LGBTQ acceptance.
The Academy of Country Music Awards will air May 11. You can see who is nominated this year at ACMCountry.com/noms.
