Ella Langley is just getting started. After years of immersing herself in the Nashville songwriting community, she broke through in 2024 with the viral Riley Green duet “You Look Like You Love Me.” All that momentum came to a head at the 2025 ACM Awards. There, Langley was both the night’s most-nominated and most-awarded artist. In a particularly symbolic moment, the 26-year-old Hope Hull, Alabama native stood shoulder to shoulder with Miranda Lambert for a rousing performance of the latter’s breakout hit, “Kerosene.”
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[RELATED: Ella Langley “Felt Like a 12-Year-Old Kid” During ACM Awards Duet With Miranda Lambert]
By all accounts, the May 8 ceremony should have been the brightest moment of Langley’s career—and it was. However, the “Weren’t For the Wind” singer has remained refreshingly candid about the conflicting mix of emotions she experienced leading up to that milestone.
“That day is the brightest of my career, but it’s also the darkest,” she recently told Taste of Country Nights.
The bright spots are what you’d expect. “I got to get up and sing ‘Kerosene’ with Miranda Lambert, and I met so many people I’ve looked up to my whole life,” Langley said. “I mean, Brooks & Dunn were sitting behind me, passing popcorn back and forth. It was just crazy! Reba, I met her too.”
Ella Langley Struggled With Imposter Syndrome Leading up to the ACM Awards
Still, she just couldn’t shake the feeling of not quite belonging. “I think it’s a lot of imposter syndrome, and when you want something so bad—I’m kind of a pessimist in my life. I protect my heart that way,” she previously told Entertainment Tonight.
Ahead of the ACM Awards, Ella Langley spoke frankly about her ongoing mental health battles. “It’s just the disease of my family, really,” she said. “I think it’s important to talk about it and to share that just because I might seem like I’m on the top of the mountain right now, it doesn’t look like that all the time.”
Imposter syndrome aside, Langley took home five of the eight awards she was nominated for and delivered two spectacular performances. And while “it’s hard to compute those two feelings happening at the same time,” she says it helps to lean on her faith.
“God has chose you,” she said. “I have gotten so close with him in these past few months.”
Featured image by Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock
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