Kelsea Ballerini Opens CMT Awards with Tribute to Nashville Capturing Victims

Kelsea Ballerini opened up the CMT Music Awards with a strong speech … a really private tribute to the victims of the Nashville Covenant Faculty capturing, and one which introduced her to tears.

The nation music star acquired emotional Sunday evening as she opened the award present in Austin, Texas … calling out the names of the 6 victims of Audrey Hale‘s rampage.

Kelsea began to interrupt down when she added, “The group of sorrow over this and the 130 mass shootings within the U.S. this yr alone stretches from coast to coast.”

And, then she shared her personal up shut expertise with gun violence in colleges — Kelsea recalled, “I needed to personally get up right here and share this second as a result of on Aug. 21, 2008, I watched Ryan McDonald, my 15-year-old classmate at Central Excessive Faculty, lose his life to a gun in our cafeteria.”

McDonald was fatally shot by a classmate at Kelsea’s highschool in Knoxville, TN — it occurred in a crowded cafeteria, in full view of a number of different college students … together with Kelsea.

She hosted the CMTs with Kane Brown, and went on to dedicate the printed to the rising listing of households, pals, survivors, witnesses and responders whose lives have been modified by such violence.