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Reba McEntire took the stage with Dolly Parton and Carrie Underwood to share hosting duties at the 2019 CMA Awards. And she confessed the process and practice was initially a little tricky.

At the end of the night, they ended up putting on a memorable show, as hosting an evening spotlighting women in country music was an important goal. But the “Fancy” singer said she thought it was all a little “like herding cats” during the first rehearsal.

(L-R) Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, and Dolly Parton speak onstage during the 53rd annual CMA Awards at the Music City Center on November 13, 2019, in Nashville, Tennessee. They shared hosting duties.
(L-R) Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood | Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, and Carrie Underwood shared hosting duties for the 2019 CMA Awards

Though Underwood and Brad Paisley had an established history of hosting the CMA Awards, duet partners Parton and McEntire joined Underwood to celebrate women in country music in 2019.

McEntire has been vocal about being a woman in a genre she thinks only sometimes holds space for them. For example, she hosted the Academy of Country Music Awards for her 15th time in 2019. But no women were nominated for Entertainer of the Year that year, which didn’t sit well with her.

“I’m missing my girlfriends on this,” she told PBS, adding, “[It’s] disappointing. Didn’t surprise me. But when anything like that happens, I just know us gals … we got to work harder. We got to support each other. We have got to get in there next year. It’s got to change.”

Reba McEntire said sharing hosting duties with Dolly Parton and Carrie Underwood was ‘like herding cats’ at first

While discussing what it was like to host the 2019 CMA Awards, McEntire said she thought “it was like herding cats” initially (per Country Now). Parton noted that attempting to put on a show with “all girls” created some “chaos backstage.”

But Underwood, who joked onstage that she didn’t love sharing a dressing room with her co-hosts, interjected that it was “fun” in the end. And that was a statement to which they all agreed.

McEntire shared that, fortunately, everything had fallen into place by the second rehearsal, and the show was “perfection.”

Furthermore, Underwood added it was an extraordinary moment to look around the stage and see all the “amazing women” from the genre she loves, noting it was like a “dream” for her.

Reba McEntire highlights the strength of women in country music

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Underwood and McEntire discussed the importance of spotlighting women in their genre, and McEntire said, “Women have always been very strong in country music” (per Country Now).

She noted that it dates back to “the good old days when they were the opening act” until artists like Parton changed things. Notably, trailblazer Patsy Cline was the first solo female artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973 — a decade after her tragic death.

McEntire added that thanks to Parton and others like her, “all of the females” that had a spot on the stage at the CMA Awards in 2019 could be there. She declared, “They really [paved] a stronger pavement for us to come along and get to headline and win Female Vocalist … [and] Entertainer of the Year.”

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