Jelly Roll Wins Breakthrough Male Video of the Year at the 2023 CMT Music Awards
The trophy for Breakthrough Male Video of the Year was awarded to Jelly Roll at the 2023 CMT Music Awards in Austin, Texas, on Sunday night (Apr. 2.) He beat out Bailey Zimmerman, Corey Kent, Drake Milligan, Jackson Dean, and Nate Smith to win in this category.
Parker McCollum — who won this award last year — presented Jelly Roll with his trophy, and Jelly Roll greeted him with a smile and a big hug as he stepped up to the stage.
"They let a loser win tonight, baby. They let a loser win tonight," the singer said, arms open to the crowd. He went on to thank his team, his label and his wife, before reflecting briefly on the magnitude of the win.
"This is more than an award. This is for the fans, baby," the rising hitmaker marveled. "This is for the losers, baby. This is for the losers and the have-nots. God takes the impossible and makes it look small."
Jelly Roll walked into the 2023 CMT Music Awards as one of this year's most nominated artists, and for good reason: Few rising acts have quite so much fan momentum and live enthusiasm behind them in their first year in the mainstream. "Son of a Sinner" -- which is also nominated in the Male Video of the Year Category -- was a No. 1 hit for Jelly, and its music video is a hard-hitting depiction of the singer's own experience with addiction and personal battles. It finds him sitting at a bar, nursing a drink, and as the song continues, his image fades away, replaced by a variety of other struggling people sitting at the bar as they carry the weight of the struggles they face in their own lives.
It's the singer's second trophy of the night: He won the award for CMT Digital-First Performance of the Year before the ceremony started.
For the first time in 2023, the CMT Music Awards divided its Breakthrough Video of the Year category into Male and Female subdivisions -- a testament to the sheer amount of talent running through the country genre's current rising crop. The 2023 CMT Music Awards aired live on CBS and was also available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.