Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

Nashville star Lainey Wilson is still reeling after receiving nine Country Music Association Awards nominations for the second year in a row two weeks ago.

“It’s crazy,” she marvels over her CMA nominations to New York Post. “I mean, there’s a few categories where I’m competing with myself. It’s wild. If you would have told little Lainey that this would happen this soon into my career, I would have told you you were lying.”

Wilson has also been lucky in love. She and her boyfriend, former Pittsburgh Steelers player Devlin “Duck” Hodges, have been in a relationship since 2021 but made their red-carpet debut as a couple at the 2023 ACMs in Dallas.  “I just decided to keep something for myself, you know?” she explains. “And I laugh and say I wanted to see if he was in it for the right reasons — and turns out he was.”