Kelsea Ballerini dances with drag queens at 2023 CMT awards

Kelsea Ballerini made waves Sunday as co-host of the Country Music Television awards, with an emotional tribute to Nashville shooting victims and a performance with drag queens as a protest against Tennessee’s proposed laws.

Ballerini, who co-hosted the show with Kane Brown in Austin, Tex., honored the six victims who were slain at the Nashville Covenant School shooting last Monday and recounted her own experience of being in a school shooting in Knoxville, Tennessee.

“The community of sorrow over this and the 130 mass shootings in the US this year alone stretches from coast to coast,” the 29-year-old singer said.

“I wanted to personally stand up here and share this moment because on Aug. 21, 2008, I watched Ryan McDonald, my 15-year-old classmate at Central High School, lose his life to a gun in our cafeteria.”

The singer ended the speech by saying it is time for “real action that moves us forward together to create change for the safety of our kids and our loved ones.”

Later in the show, Ballerini performed her most recent single, “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” accompanied by alumni from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — an act of protest against a proposed Tennessee law that would criminalize drag revues.

Ballerini invited Manila Luzon, Kennedy Davenport, Jan Sport and Olivia Lux on stage as a symbol of protest to various proposed anti-drag legislature.

The country superstar later tweeted a photo with the drag queens solidifying her support of the LGBTQ+ community.

“If you go down, I’m going down too,” tweeted Ballerini with a rainbow flag emoji. “Thank you to these iconic queens and @manilaluzon, @kennedyddoftx, @janjanjan, @TheOliviaLux and @CMT for celebrating love, self-expression, and performance.”

Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee signed the legislation into law last month, but it has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

“If Tennessee wishes to exercise its police power in restricting speech it considers obscene, it must do so within the constraints and framework of the United States Constitution,” Tennessee federal judge Thomas Parker wrote.

“The Court finds that, as it stands, the record here suggests that when the legislature passed this Statute, it missed the mark.”

The proposed law would ban “adult cabaret entertainment” in public spaces where it could be viewed by a minor.

Friends of George’s, Inc — an LGBTQ theater troupe — sued the state calling the law “unconstitutional.”

“This law threatens to force a theatre troupe into a nightclub because Tennessee legislators believe they have the right to make their own opinions about drag into law,” argued the group. “Plaintiff’s other option is to proceed as planned, knowing that the Friends of George’s drag performers could face criminal — even felony — charges.”

The group also said that should a cheerleader for the Tennessee Titans and a Drag Queen dance in front of a minor, only the drag queen would face charges.

“Thus, the prohibited speech is defined by the identity of the drag performer — and the message he conveys,” the group’s lawyers said.

Several states including Texas — where the CMT awards were held — are also considering signing anti-queer legislation into law.

In Texas, the law would allow anyone to sue any venue or performer who does drag in front of a minor.

However, critics of the bill said the term “drag” is unclear.

“The language is so broad that traditional theater venues, productions of Shakespeare, all kinds of plays where a trans performer or even a cis performer is acting out a role that involves cross-dressing would also be on the chopping block,” Johnathan Gooch, communications director of Equality Texas, told radio station KUT.