Gayle King of CBS Mornings presented at the CMT Music Awards on Monday, April 11, and while onstage, she shared a story about Carly Pearce showing some true southern hospitality. King explained that when she landed in Nashville, she had a couple of hours before she had to get ready for the awards show, so she texted Pearce asking for advice on where to get food for herself and her crew. Pearce texted her the name of a local restaurant, Milk and Honey.
“We go to Milk and Honey, I order everything off the damn menu, I go to pay and they said, ‘Your special friend from Nashville called and they’re paying,’” King explained to the awards show crowd. “I said, ‘Special friend, Thomas Rhett?’”
King says the restaurant workers said, ‘No,’ and that the mystery person had a sweet voice. She then guessed Kane Brown. They said no yet again.
“They wouldn’t tell me, but it was Carly Pearce,” King says. “Carly, thank you. Wherever Carly is, thank you. If I had known she was paying, I wouldn’t have ordered so much food.”
Pearce went into the awards show with two nominations: Collaborative Video of the Year for her video for “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” with Ashley McBryde and CMT Digital-First Performance of the Year for “Dear Miss Loretta.” The singer also put on a fiery performance of her song, “Diamondback,” from her album, 29: Written In Stone.
The CMT Music Awards took place at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium and aired live on CBS. Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood took home two awards for Collaborative Video of the Year and the top prize of Video of the Year. Cody Johnson also went home with two trophies for Male Video of the Year and CMT Digital-First Performance of the Year.