Kelsea Ballerini ‘dedicates’ CMT Awards to Nashville shooting victims

Kelsea Ballerini has recently honoured Nashville shooting victims at the 2023 CMT Music Awards on April 2.

“On March 27, 2023, three 9-year-olds, Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs along with Dr. Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak and Mike Hill walked into The Covenant School and didn't walk out,” began the singer-songwriter, reported via PEOPLE.

The musician continued, “The community of sorrow over this and the 130 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone stretches from coast to coast.”

Recalling the shooting incident in 2008, the songstress mentioned, “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 Blindsided singer then “dedicated” the broadcast to the “families, friends, survivors, witnesses and responders” whose lives forever to be changed” by gun violence.

“I pray deeply that the closeness and the community that we feel through the next few hours of music can soon turn into action — like, real action — that moves us forward together to create change for the safety of our kids and our loved ones,” concluded the musician.