ABC News RadioGeorge Strait won his first ACM Entertainer of the Year trophy back in 1989 before fellow nominee Taylor Swift was even born. After taking the top category Sunday night, George said of fellow Entertainer nominees Taylor, Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert, ” A lot of those people… most of ’em are friends of mine, you know I’ve worked with ’em and they’re all deserving of this award.”

George thanked his fans for giving him the Entertainer of the Year trophy as he looks towards wrapping up his final tour this summer.

“I couldn’t have written this you know,” George said. “No way I couldn’t have dreamed it like that.”

Miranda Lambert made a point to acknowledge all of her fellow Female Vocalist nominees when she accepted her fifth-consecutive trophy in that category, but she forgot to mention nominee Taylor Swift. Miranda revealed backstage she’d cleared it up with Taylor.

“She’s kind of like her own animal. She’s ridiculous,” Miranda said of Taylor.  “I talked to her, and she’s cool. Taylor’s cool anyway, but we’re cool with it.”

Jason Aldean was surprised to win his second-consecutive Male Vocalist of the Year trophy going up against show hosts Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton. Jason said backstage, “It doesn’t get much hotter than those two guys so the fact that you know we were able to come there and pull that off is… I was probably the most shocked person in the room.”

The Band Perry spent the past 11 days in Las Vegas perfecting their opening performance of “Chainsaw.” Lead singer Kimberly Perry was happy to see a man with a shocked face on the front row as they sang. She said backstage, “When we started working on it we said, ‘I just want people to say what the heck is going on up there.'”

Band mate Neil Perry added, “The opening performance is a lot of pressure and we put a lot more on the three of us just ’cause that’s what we do and we worked a long time on this performance. We wanted to give this show the energy it deserved.”

New Artist of the Year winner Justin Moore fought back tears after winning his first ACM trophy. He said,”I wanted this so bad I mean, I really, really did. This was not make or break in our career, we’ve put out three albums two of which have gone gold, the next one’s about to, we’ve had a lot of hit records but this was very very important to me and my team.”   

Since that category is fan-voted, Justin was quick to give credit to his followers for the win.

“Anytime my fans are in the fold, any time my fans are involved, any time they have a voice, they got a big freakin’ voice man,” he said.

Album of the Year winner Kacey Musgraves actually crashed the press room during George Strait’s interview session to declare her love for the country legend.

She said backstage, “Growing up in Texas, George Strait has been a huge influence on me. He has stayed so true to what he is since day one. He has never wavered. It’s just quality.”

Kacey added, “He’s just so classy, and he’s not hard to look at either.”

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