Lainey Wilson Opens Up About Imposter Syndrome — “The Devil Has a Way of Coming In When You Least Expect It”.LC
On Nov. 19, country superstar Lainey Wilson will end a 30-year drought when she hosts this year’s CMA Awards all by herself. The “Somewhere Over Laredo” singer, 33, becomes the first female artist to helm the awards show on her own since Reba McEntire did so in 1991. Collecting nine CMA Awards just in the last four years, including the coveted Entertainer of the Year trophy in 2023, not a soul in the country music world can question Wilson’s bona fides at this point—except, apparently, for the “Country’s Cool Again” singer herself.
[RELATED: Lainey Wilson Brings Country Heart and Honest Reflection to TIME100 Next Gala]
Lainey Wilson Still Doubts Her Success Sometimes
By now, Lainey Wilson’s backstory is the stuff of legend. In 2011, the 19-year-old traded the comfort of her tiny Louisiana hometown for a camper trailer outside of a recording studio in Nashville. Releasing two studio albums and one EP, she finally landed a record deal with the BBR Music Group in 2018. The next year, as Wilson toured with Morgan Wallen, her music gained wider exposure on the popular Paramount show Yellowstone.
Things have been mostly uphill since her breakthrough single, “Things a Man Oughta Know,” in 2021. Sending eight songs to the top of the country charts, Wilson became the first woman to take home CMA’s Entertainer of the Year trophy since Taylor Swift in 2009. Still, the “Wildflowers and Wild Horses” singer admitted during a recent interview with SiriusXM that her myriad accomplishments aren’t always enough to keep the self-doubt at bay.
“I just kind of always thought like, ‘When I get it—’cause I’m gonna get it—I’m not gonna feel like I don’t deserve it. Or I’m not gonna feel like somebody else deserves it over me,’” Wilson said.
Unfortunately, “the devil has a way of coming in and taking his little stick and stirring things up,” Wilson said.
Staying grounded amid a Whirlwind of success isn’t always easy. However, Lainey Wilson says she usually manages to return to “who I truly am.”
“I’m not just Lainey the artist, I’m not just the songwriter. I’m more than that,” she said. “And when I get to the root of all that, I think that’s when I can really step away from that imposter syndrome and be like, ‘All right, you’re here for a reason. The Lord don’t put you places He don’t want you.’”
Featured image by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images
