Country Music’s Hottest Star Keeps Pointing Back To God

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She’s southern, stylish, and downright sensational. Ella Langley made history Sunday night, sweeping the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards with a whopping seven pieces of hardware, marking a win in every category in which she was nominated.

The 27-year-old Alabama native is arguably the hottest name in country music right now. Her hit “Choosin’ Texas,” which won song and single of the year, holds the record for the most weeks at No. 1 on the all-genre Hot 100 by a female country artist. She broke the record set by Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” in 2012. The smash hit also crushed every country chart by being the only country song by a woman to hit No. 1 on the Hot 100, Hot Country, and Country Airplay charts all at the same time.

With records like that, it could be hard to be humble, but the one thing keeping Langley level-headed is her faith.

“All I gotta say is thank you God for putting me in a room with these three people right here,” Langley said after winning the award for Song of the Year with “Choosin’ Texas.” (The three people she was referring to are her co-writers on the song.)

She would return to the stage several times throughout the nearly three-hour award show for performances and more accolades, but when she took home the biggest honor of the night, she once again stopped to thank the man upstairs.

“Thank you, Jesus, for letting me do this for a living,” Langley said on stage after winning Female Artist of the Year.

In the same speech, she openly talked about her struggles the morning of the award show and how praying helped calm her.

“Today I was having a strange day,” she said. “I don’t know what it is about awards. I walked right into Lainey [Wilson]’s room, and I just got emotional, and she hugged me, wrapped me up, and started praying for me.”

In a world of award shows where faith is rarely mentioned, Langley’s language stood out. But her relationship with God is something she doesn’t shy away from in her speeches or her music.

In fact, on her sophomore album “Dandelion,” released last month, she sings explicitly about her faith. The track “Speaking Terms” is not about an on-again, off-again romantic relationship, but instead a relationship with God.

It eloquently depicts someone who doesn’t talk to God as much as she did as a child, opening up with the line, “I used to kneel beside my bed at night when I was small. It was easy as breathing, believing wasn’t hard at all. I knew that you were there close as my next prayer.”

The chorus focuses on reconnecting with God: “I’m waiting on a whisper, just something to confirm that you and me are still on speaking terms.”

Another song on Langley’s new album that has a faith focus is “Loving Life Again,” which the chart-topper wrote after spending some time reading her Bible back in Alabama last year.

“The last year of my life, 2025, is when it really got intense for me a little,” Langley told a concert crowd back in March of this year. “So I took a couple weeks off. I cancelled everything that I had … I got to spend two weeks sitting there with my mom and my daddy. I got to read my Bible and be next to my family in a way that I hadn’t gotten to do since I was 18 years old.”

Shortly after that message to fans at a show, Langley shared an Easter message to her nearly 4 million followers. On top of a video of her singing “Because He Lives” on her Instagram story, she wrote:

“Even though I’ve been a believer in Christ my whole life, my relationship with Him has changed drastically over the last year,” she said. “I started to have ‘faith.’ I started to view the days we have been given as a gift instead of a chore. I am so grateful for a God who leads with love and compassion. Thank you Jesus for giving me a way to spend eternity with you. I hope everyone had a great day. Happy Easter!”

While her faith was strengthened this last year, the “Dandelion” singer grew up in a small Baptist church just south of Montgomery, Alabama, where she sang before she knew how to read.

“I sang at church a lot. I learned how to read from singing hymnals,” she told Theo Von on the “This Past Weekend” podcast.

Her family recognized back then that Langley had a talent, and the practice she got in the pews every Sunday prepared her voice for a career in music. But her faith is what keeps her grounded as her skill and popularity grow.