Kaitlin Butts Gives Landmark Speech After 2024 Ameripolitan Award Win

Kaitlin Butts at the 2023 Ameripolitan Awards


The 2024 Ameripolitan Awards transpired in Austin Sunday evening (2-18), and it included a host of moments that feel like they will live in the memory and history of not just the event, but the annals of country and roots music lore for a long time.

There was Augie Myers and Flaco Jimenez taking the stage to reprise the songs of the legendary Texas Tornados. There was Monte Warden recalling the time Charlie Robison saved his drowning son from a pool during a tribute to Robison. There was Billy Don Burns winning for Best Outlaw Male award, and Tammi Savoy turning in a performance that shook the rafters of Austin’s Moody Theater.

To see a full report and photos from the event, CLICK HERE.

But the moment perhaps most people were talking about when they were filing out of the venue, hanging out at an afterparty, or waking up the next morning, is the speech that Kaitlin Butts gave after winning the 2024 Ameripolitan Award for Best Honky Tonk Female. She thanked all of the people behind her career, as well as her family and fans. But it was really the message to the other women of country music that deserves to be highlighted.

Kaitlin Butts was first nominated for an Ameripolitan award and performed at the event in 2023. As Saving Country Music observed at the time,

“Kaitlin Butts put on a performance that is only fair to characterize as a ‘career moment.’ Without her band, and in front of a crowd that’s not exactly the Texas/Red Dirt scene that she’s familiar with, Kaitlin came out with just an acoustic guitar, and stunned. It’s in these kinds of naked moments where an artist either rises, or is exposed. Off the strength of her songs, her voice, and her guitar playing, Kaitlin Butts proved she’s ready for any stage, crowd, or moment.”

Perhaps it was through that 2023 Ameripolitan performance, and many more from Kaitlin over the last year that she earned the 2024 Honky Tonk Female trophy.

For posterity and those that may not be plugged into the right channels to see or here it, below you can find a transcription of Kaitlin Butts’ 2024 Ameripolitan acceptance speech, and video from the moment at the bottom.

For more coverage of the 2024 Ameripolitan Awards, check out, Saving Country Music on Instagram. Another article about the greater impact of Ameripolitan 2024 is also forthcoming.



Well, this is really awesome. I’ve never won an award before. I told myself, ‘Maybe I should keep it quick.’ But that’s not really my style. So I’m going to talk for a minute (laughing).

I want to thank my manager Mark Noel at Triple 8, William Morris, Soundly, my mom, my husband Cleto who helped me find my own path. Shit, it’s all really happening.


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I want to dedicate this award to the women I see there running down the road alongside me, girls like Emily [Nenni], Hannah [Juanita], Summer [Dean], Kat [Hasty], Brennen [Leigh], Kelsey [Waldon], Taylor [Hunnicutt], and all the other women nominated tonight that I haven’t gotten a chance to meet yet.

I just want to say, I see you. I see you, and I see the extra struggles that we get to face. But you keep f–king going, and you don’t let it keep you from doing this. I’m sorry I have a foul mouth. You don’t let the comments like ‘I don’t normally like girl singers but I like you,’ you don’t let that stop you.

You don’t let the lowball offer at the noon o’clock first set of the festival stop you, or the unconscious or conscious bias in this industry stop you, or the car breakdowns or mental breakdowns stop you either. You get in the dress in the back of that stinky ass van in the parking lot of the venue hoping no one will walk up to your untinted windows and see that you’re wearing your ugly bras to the show tonight.

You put on your lipstick in that rearview mirror, and you get on stage like it’s nothing. But I know it’s not nothing and I see each and every one of you honky tonk women, and I admire and look up to you more than words can express.

I’m not done (through applause).

To all the folks that have children here in the audience tonight, please go buy a ticket and see these women after this weekend. When I was a girl, my first concert was The Wreckers at Cain’s Ballroom. I saw those women on stage playing their own instruments, and singing their own songs about life as they saw it. As soon as I saw them, I knew that was what I wanted to be. And most importantly, I knew that it was possible because I saw it with my own eyes. And I believe that if you can see it you can be it.

And I am a product of the women in this room tonight and the women who have come before me and shown me the way. The women in this room are balls of fire, and we need them to inspire future generations, but we can’t do that without the support. Please buy a ticket to see them live. They may curse and use a few swear words. When you’re in a van with six dudes for six weeks, you start to talk like one. But your kids will live.

Thank you to the Ameripolitan Awards, and everyone who voted for me. You put fuel in my tank.

© 2024 Saving Country Music