Kacey Musgraves’ Risqué ACM Performance Sparks Backlash
on May 20, 2026 • Updated May 20, 2026
Kacey Musgraves’ “Dry Spell” Performance At The ACM Made Waves
Kacey Musgraves received some unexpected backlash after her ACM performance debut on Sunday (May 17).
It’s hard to believe that after winning Album of the Year (twice) and Female Artist of the Year at past ACM Awards, Kacey Musgraves has never performed at the award show until this year!
She sang “Dry Spell,” her first single off her new album Middle of Nowhere. “Dry Spell” is a cheeky song about her love life being non-existent for the last year.
“Ain’t nobody’s tool up in my shed / Ain’t nobody’s boots under my bed,” she sang.
Her performance was more or less a recreation of her music video, which took place at a grocery store. Her rhinestoned Daisy Dukes, paired with her song’s innuendos, the stage props, and certain camera angles had some viewers at home clutching their pearls.
Watch her “Dry Spell” performance below.
While she did receive some comments about the innuendos and risqué nature of the performance, the latest chatter about it has nothing to do with that at all.
What Are People So Angry About?
It turns out, the grocery store signs had people in a tizzy! People are accusing her of using AI posters on the stage set. The signs used featured song titles from her catalog including “The Architect,” and “Follow Your Arrow.”
Fans also noticed that one of the signs read, “Freash Deals,” instead of “Fresh Deals.”
This led to people to analyze the other posters, which people believed were created using AI instead of actual artists.
See fan comments about the posters below.
“Why all the AI décor Kacey”
“Are those posters AI? 🥴”
“Love Kacey but the ai graphics aren’t the vibe”
“The grocery store signs were almost as good as the song.”
“All the background subliminal messages.”
“Love everything except the corny AI generated flyers”
“I hope so bad that’s a human typo and not AI on the “FREASH” sign” @spaceykacey”
“Love this, but guys if we’re supporting artists they should also be supporting artists. Absolutely no reason to have terrible AI graphics on the set.”
“did we not have a budget for a proper artist for the background posters 😩 so disappointing to see AI used on this set”
“Unfortunately they are textbook AI generated posters haha. It’s possible they aren’t but if that’s the case then they are mid”
“fresh is misspelled. it’s not supposed to say freash. I know the references. doesn’t need to be AI.”
“The AI signs ugh”
These comments were from the ACM’s Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok accounts.
What do you think of the backlash? Let us know in the comments.
