Reba McEntire is on an Unprecedented Winning Streak

Lainey Wilson just won the ACM for Entertainer of the Year but a strong case could be made for Reba McEntire. The country music icon has a Midas touch right now.

Here is some recent proof of Reba's reign:

• Hosted the 2024 ACM Awards on Amazon Prime and announced she'll return in 2025.
• Locked in a new NBC sitcom called Happy's Place for the 2024/25 season.
• Surprised fans at Stagecoach with a pair of duets with Miranda Lambert.
• Invited Lainey Wilson to join the Grand Ole Opry.
• Won The Voice!

Related: Reba McEntire's New Sitcom is Official - What Is Happy's Place About?

All of this happened in the last 30 days. All of this happened after McEntire (69) celebrated 40 years in the entertainment industry. There is no precedent for her late-career surge.

Who Won The Voice, Season 25?

OK, Asher HaVon actually won the the NBC reality show, but he did it with McEntire's guidance. This was her second season as coach; during Season 24 her team finished second and fourth. On Tuesday, her team took the top two spots as Josh Sanders was named runner-up.

There's no doubt that heading into Season 26, Team Reba is the team to beat. She's begun her career as Voice coach in a way similar to Blake Shelton, the show's GOAT.

It's worth noting that HaVon is the show's first LGBTQ+ winner. There is a think piece to be written about how McEntire helped facilitate that, but we'll stop short of speculation other than to note that she's long been an ally in a genre not known for equality.

Reba McEntire's New TV Show

Happy's Place is just McEntire's most recent television endeavor. The fall sitcom follows her turn as Sunny Barnes in the ABC drama Big Sky: Deadly Trails. In between, she and boyfriend Rex Linn starred in a made-for-TV movie called The Hammer.

None of these productions materialized out of thin air. She has been working to get to this point for years — perhaps since divorcing her former manager Narvel Blackstock.

Progress was slow at first — an announced spin as Idgie Threadgoode in a TV remake of Fried Green Tomatoes didn't materialize — but she kept her wits about her.

"What I’ve learned from Fried Green Tomatoes is you’d better have lots of balls in the air and plates spinning, because you never know which one is going to go through," McEntire told Taste of Country in 2021.

New Music From Reba McEntire

After spending a few years re-releasing selections from her catalog, McEntire is once again focused on new music. She premiered a song called "I Can't" on the Voice and then performed it at the ACM Awards. Fans loved the performance and asked for more. No album details have been announced.

Most remarkable about the Country Music Hall of Fame singer's late-career surge is that she hasn't changed who she is on stage or on screen. All of her characters on TV feel born from her own no-nonsense personality (this made the prospect of her playing Threadgoode in FGT so fascinating).

The music is in line with songs from a decade ago and her advice and approach to media has remained practical and businesslike. At an age when most country singers give way to the passing next generation, Reba is racing them like her next meal depends on it.