Beyoncé’s cowboy cosplay may have dazzled the Grammys, but the Academy of Country Music Awards saw through the rhinestones. When the 2025 ACM nominations dropped, Beyoncé was nowhere to be found. No Album of the Year, no Song of the Year, no perfunctory nod just to quiet the think pieces. And let’s be clear — that’s not a scandal. That’s a line in the sand.
Despite walking out of the Grammys with trophies for Best Country Album and Best Country Duo/Group Performance, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter failed to land a single nomination at the ACMs. And good. That’s the country music community saying loud and clear: You don’t get to moonlight in this genre for clout. Not without walking the walk.
The Grammys may be obsessed with optics. Country music, on the other hand, still believes in dues. And Beyoncé, for all her vocal ability and pop superstardom, hasn’t paid a dime of them.
This Was Never About Genre-Bending. It Was About Brand Expansion.
Let’s talk facts. Beyoncé has never played the Grand Ole Opry. She’s never cut her teeth in Nashville honky-tonks. She didn’t climb the ladder the way country artists do — not through songwriting circles, radio tours, and community-building.
Instead, Cowboy Carter was a calculated detour—a marketing pivot dressed in Americana denim. Beyoncé herself said it wasn’t a country album. Then, the second it won her awards, suddenly, it was a country masterpiece? Which is it?
This wasn’t a love letter to country—it was a takeover attempt, and the genre saw it coming a mile away.