Alan Jackson Stuns ACM Awards With Emotional Performance Before Accepting Lifetime Achievement Honor

After stepping away from the public eye in recent years, Alan Jackson returned to the stage at the 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards.

The singer, 66, performed “Remember When” during the Thursday, May 8, awards show at Ford Center in Frisco, Texas. After his performance, he accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award, which going forward will be named in his honor.

“Thank everybody so much. It’s quite an honor. A few years ago, one of my fans named their dog after me, and I thought that was something, but man, this is really amazing,” Jackson quipped after host Reba McEntire presented him with the trophy. “I came to Nashville with a paper sack full of songs and a crazy dream, and all these years later, I’m standing here receiving such an honor like this. It’s just mind-blowing.”

Jackson went on to thank his fans and colleagues, saying, “I thank God all the time for all the people that have been part of my life and career that helped me get here and maintain this all this time. There’s so many people, I can’t even begin to thank everybody that’s been a part of my life and career. But I especially wanna thank my fans all over this country and all over the world who appreciated my music so much. I wanna thank y’all for everything.”

The country superstar closed his speech with a special shout-out to his wife, Denise.

“I do want to especially thank one person who’s been my best friend since I was 17 years old. That’s my wife, Denise, out there,” he said. “She’s loved me through the good and the bad and the happy and the sad and influenced me, given me three beautiful daughters, helped me keep my feet on the ground all these years. I wouldn’t be here without her. So there’s not much else I can say that’s better than that. Thank y’all so much for this honor.”

The beloved country music artist has racked up 21 trophies from the Academy of Country Music throughout his extensive career, though Jackson was not nominated for any ACM Awards at Thursday’s event.

For the past year, Jackson has been on his Last Call: One More for the Road Tour, which was described in a press release as “one final chance for people to see and hear the iconic singer-songwriter perform his best-loved songs — music that’s been the soundtrack of their lives — in concert.”

The tour initially kicked off in 2022. After a brief hiatus, Jackson resumed the venture in the summer of 2024. His final show is currently scheduled for May 17 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, though he could announce additional dates in the future.

Despite continuing to tour, Jackson largely retreated from the spotlight over the course of the past decade amid an ongoing health battle that he kept private for years. In September 2021, he revealed that he’d been suffering from a degenerative nerve condition called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease for the past 10 years, which affected his ability to walk and perform on stage.

“I’ve been reluctant to talk about this publicly and to my fans, but it’s been a while, and it’s starting to affect my performance on stage a little bit where I don’t feel comfortable,” Jackson said on the Today show at the time. “I just wanted the fans and the public to know if they’ve come to see me in the last few years or if they come to see me in the future if I play anymore, what’s going on.”

Jackson — who shares daughters Mattie, 34, Alexandra, 31, and Dani, 27, with wife Denise, whom he married in December 1979 — noted that he didn’t want his fans “to think I’m drunk on stage because I’m having problems with mobility and balance,” adding that he inherited the condition from his father. He also explained that the disease is not fatal but will “disable me eventually.”

“I’ve had a wonderful, beautiful life, and I’ve been so blessed. I can’t even imagine what other people go through,” he continued. “This is not a condition that I would be complaining about typically, but it is going to affect me performance-wise on stage, and I don’t know how much I’ll continue to tour.”