Entertainment Weekly (March 25th 2011)

ACM Awards preview: Blake Shelton is a host of fun

Blake Shelton isn’t just a nominee at this year’s ACMs (airing April 3 on CBS); he also joins Reba McEntire as cohost. What can we expect from the genre’s reigning smart-ass? He gives us a tease.

1. At least one Charlie Sheen joke
”Honestly, I don’t see any way around it. But I’d rather take shots at country artists because I know them, and we’ll laugh about it later. There are no boundaries with me. I’ll even make a joke, if I have to, about Taylor Swift. And that’s a big no-no these days.”

2. Some ad-libs with Reba
”We’re both from the same area there in Oklahoma, so we always have stuff to talk about. I don’t think we’ll duet, though. God dang, it’s hard enough to perform on one of these shows. It’s startin’ to dawn on me, I think they’re waitin’ for me to write a script. Probably gotta get on that.”

3. A little bookmaking on the side
”I’ll go backstage, dig through the envelopes, see who won, and then go to the nominees and say, ‘Two hundred bucks, and I’ll tell you.’ If there’s five of them, that’s a thousand bucks right there. Then the other four can leave ’cause they didn’t really want to be there anyway.”

4. A shout-out to his fiancée, Miranda Lambert
”I can almost guarantee you that Miranda will win an ACM this year, because she’s up for, like, 30 of ’em.”

5. A preemptive plea for forgiveness
”So I don’t have to do this later, I want to apologize right now for my hosting. I don’t know exactly what I’m apologizing for, but just let it be known that I’m payin’ it forward.”