Country artist Kelsea Ballerini opened the CMT Music Awards with a tribute to the victims in the Nashville shooting, then danced alongside drag queens, as states consider limiting drag performances involving children.
QUICK FACTS:
- Country Music Television (CMT) co-host and country singer Kelsea Ballerini opened the annual awards show Sunday night honoring the six victims of a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, three of whom were young children.
- Ballerini said she could relate to the tragedy, as she witnessed a school shooting in her high school cafeteria in 2008.
- A few hours later, Ballerini danced with a group of drag queens while she sang her new hit, “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too),” later tweeting an image from the performance and thanking them for “celebrating love, self expression, and performance.”
- Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren took to Twitter to criticize the performance, claiming the country music industry “has gone full woke.”
- “Y’all just don’t stop do you?” Lahren wrote. “Does everything have to be a platform to shove the rainbow mafia down our throats? Can you ever just do…idk…country freakin music?!!!!” Lahren tweeted.
CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR TOMI LAHREN ON THE TRANSGENDER MOVEMENT:
“Some of y’all blindly think this trans movement is about individuality and expression, no. It’s a manipulative and sneaky way for big Pharma to have a lock on these people for the rest of their lives. Wake up,” Lahren said.
BACKGROUND:
- In June 2021, CMT urged viewers to “wear orange” as part of a coordinated stance against gun violence, upsetting many fans who said they would no longer tune in to the channel.
- “We’re (virtually) wearing orange today in support [of] National Gun Violence Awareness Day and to call attention to the more than 100 lives that are lost every day to gun violence,” the network tweeted at the time.
- “Wear Orange” is part of Everytown for Gun Safety’s gun control campaign, a movement backed by many far-left political figures including Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
- “This is anti-gun propaganda disguised as virtue,” one Twitter user said. “CMT has gone down the drain with all other corporations who sell out to the Woke extremists.”
- “I for one, will not ever watch any station who champions any campaign against the 2nd Amendment, which is what CMT just did. You’d think they would know their audiance [sic], but you put woke idiots in charge, and you get stupidity,” another tweeted.
