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It was a big night for Carrie Underwood in Las Vegas at the 44th annual Academy of Country Music Awards. The fourth season's winner took home the most coveted award when she beat out four-time consecutive champ Kenny Chesney and others for the Entertainer of the Year category. She was visibly shaking as she accepted the honor, thanking her "baby" (boyfriend Mike Fisher, who was not in attendance) and even cracked a joke at a story Matthew McConaughey told just minutes before reading the news that Carrie was the winner.
The fact that Carrie is the first female to be nominated for the award, never mind the fact that she won, since 2000 when the Dixie Chicks were victorious, speaks volumes. It also didn't hurt that the category was partially fan-voted, something Carrie and her fans have a leg up on the other nominees.
Even in the face of the big win, the talk around the water cooler tomorrow will undoubtedly revolve around her "lava dress," which can be seen to the right. The billowing, blood-red extravaganza was such a spectacle that it required a machine to help Carrie off the stage. Watch her perform "I Told You So" below:
Before winning Entertainer of the Year, Carrie won the Female Vocalist of the Year category for the third straight year and her Carnival Ride came in behind Taylor Swift's Fearless, which took home the honor.
Carrie also took part in a medley to open the show when she sang about 30 seconds of "All-American Girl" while fellow country artists including Rascal Flatts and Sugarland.
Carrie was not the only Idol alum to pop up at the awards show, as Kellie Pickler was there to present an award ahead of her big performance on this coming Wednesday's Idol results show.
As for my predictions, I correctly called that Carrie would take home trophies in the Entertainer of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year categories and that she would lose both Album of the Year and Video of the Year, but I got the two alternate winners wrong.
