- Lainey Wilson has always dreamed of meeting Tim McGraw.
- The singers finally got together at CMA Fest—and performed a surprise duet.
- Tim gave Lainey a sweet gift that made her emotional.
Lainey Wilson and Tim McGraw have more in common than being two of country music’s most beloved artists—they’re also both from Louisiana and grew up just down the road from each other, albeit a few decades apart. Because of this, it’s always been Lainey’s dream to meet and work with Tim. And this past weekend, that lifelong dream became a reality when Tim asked Lainey to come on stage with him to surprise fans during his CMA Fest Saturday night set.
As exciting as their rendition of “I Like It, I Love It” at Nissan Stadium was, their preshow meet-up was even more heartwarming. Luckily for fans, Lainey shared a CMA Fest scrapbook gallery on Instagram (complete with a photo with Tim and Faith Hill) and had her team film the encounter so that she can relive her dream-come-true moment for years to come.
“We’re going to meet Tim McGraw—this is my childhood dream right here,” she said in the clip. “He don’t understand how much of an influence he is to me. I made up dance routines to every song he’s ever had, and I might show him.”
The clip then follows Lainey as she walks on stage to meet Tim at long last. “Oh my gosh… It’s nice to meet you finally,” she told the “My Best Friend” singer. The country superstars went on to chat about growing up around Franklin Parish and about how they planned to surprise CMA Fest fans with a duet. The clip then cut to being backstage ahead of Tim’s performance, where he had a surprise for Lainey, too.
“I recently—well, last year—found out about your letter, and I was embarrassed, first of all, that I never saw it; I wish I would’ve seen it,” he told her while holding a stuffed envelope. “So, I wrote you a letter back, and I wrote it as though I had gotten the letter; I wrote it like, had I gotten it then, this is what I would’ve said.”
To make things even sweeter, Tim then told Lainey that famed Nashville songwriter Tom Douglas, who is one of his longtime collaborators, also wrote a song about the letter. “So I’ll send that to you,” he said. “If you like it, you like it; if you don’t, you don’t. But the whole letter is just what I’d like to think I would’ve said had I gotten your letter.”
All the while, Lainey looked wide-eyed with glee, taking in every word her idol was saying. “You’re going to make me cry,” she admitted. “...Mama and Daddy are not going to believe this!”
It was a touching moment between two humble country artists, and one that fans couldn’t help but feel smitten with. “I need 14 more episodes of these two talking,” one fan commented on Instagram. “I need that letter in a song! This is a whole story that needs to be a song that you sing together,” someone else exclaimed. “Proving to us that dreams do come true,” Golden West Boots—Lainey’s cowboy boot brand—chimed in.
Here’s to marvelous moments like these, and hopefully an official duet down the road!
