Keith Urban Will Receive a Rare ACM Award at the 2025 Ceremony

From television shows to sold-out concerts, Keith Urban has had an impressive career in country music. Now, the singer is set to add another major accomplishment to his resume: the coveted Triple Crown ACM Award.

As Billboard reported, this honor is extremely rare, with only 11 other country artists ever achieving it. When speaking with Billboard about the nomination, Urban said he hoped it would serve as an inspiration to other people looking to chase their American musical dreams. “In particular, if it inspires some people from other countries who have a dream of coming to America, then that’s a good thing.”

The Triple Crown Has Very Specific Qualifications

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The biggest reason so few people have won the Triple Crown is because of the specific requirements behind the award. According to Billboard, an artist must have won Entertainer of the Year, Artist of the Year, and New Artist of the Year during their career in order to qualify. Luckily for Urban, he has checked all of those boxes.

In 2001, Urban snagged his first-ever ACM award when he claimed the New Artist of the Year title. It was another several years before he won the next award in the Triple Crown line-up, (Male) Artist of the Year, but he took home that title twice, once in 2005 and again in 2006. Lastly, he won the all-important Entertainer of the Year award in 2019.

For Urban, This Honor Has Been Three Decades in the Making

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The Triple Crown ACM award isn’t just another sought-after prize; it’s an acknowledgement of years of hard work and success. Urban’s journey to the incredible career he has today started 33 years ago, when he came to the U.S. from his native Australia to try to make it in the music industry. “I came halfway around the world to live in Nashville,” Urban shared with Billboard. “It was my dream since I was seven years old.”

In speaking to The Boot back in 2016, Urban explained that, although his move to Nashville wasn’t exactly seamless, it was everything he had hoped for. “It was wonderful and odd and difficult and exciting,” he said. “I was in Nashville. That’s all I wanted to do.” He also described living in hotels and staying with a music engineer during his gradual transition to living in the U.S. full-time. With nearly two decades of a successful solo career under his belt and the upcoming Triple Crown nod, Urban has certainly come a long way since those early days in Nashville.