"Tonight, the ACM Awards are choosin’ Vegas," Twain said to welcome fans to the show, which returns to Las Vegas for the first time since 2023

Shania Twain kicked off the 61st annual Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday night with a monologue that nodded to past ACMs hosts. 

“Tonight, the ACM Awards are choosin’ Vegas. I sure do love this town,” the pop-country superstar said onstage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, before going on to shout out past hosts, including women like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntire, and men like Charley Pride, Glen Campbell, and Kenny Rogers.

Twain, who will release her new album Little Miss Twain in July, connected the ACMs to her own history as well. “What a time this is for country music,” she said. “Exactly 30 years ago I was honored with my first ACM Award… I can’t believe how long this journey has been.”

This marks Twain’s first time hosting the ACM Awards, though she previously helmed the People’s Choice Country Awards in 2024. In a recent interview with Billboard, Twain explained her approach to hosting as “having fun and going with the flow, getting into the excitement that I’ll be sharing with the artists who are performing and up for awards.”

She continued: “It’s a big moment in their career and in their life. For some of them, it might be a one-time-chance thing. For some, it’s a first-chance thing. For other artists, they’re just happy that they’re still there. So there’s all kinds of excitement from top to bottom. It’s a joy.”

While this is Twain’s first time hosting the ACMs, she has a storied history at the ceremony. Over the course of her career, she’s won five awards, including Top New Female Vocalist and Album of the Year in 1996 for The Woman in Me, and the coveted Entertainer of the Year prize in 2000. Most recently, she was feted with the ACM’s honorary Poet’s Award in 2022.