Brothers Osborne pick up their fourth CMA Duo of the Year, an award they last won in 2018. This year, though, it seemed meant more to them than any other.

“I think a lot of people, even myself when I came out, I didn’t know how that would be recepted (received) and of course, after that happened there were a lot of positive people giving me support and loving me. And then there was a part where like, what does that mean? Does that turn into a pat on the back and see you later?,” says TJ Osborne. “So to go there tonight and to actually see people truly meaningfully invest in who we are and support what we’re doing and what we’re about, I thought okay, this is not just a friendly ‘I Love You’ text. This is like, People really wanting to pick us up, lift us up and carry us on. And so, that’s where I really felt tonight it was, out of all of the crazy shit in this world that’s going on right now and gets a lot of attention, this was something very positive happened tonight, and it was just so wonderful to experience that.”

Love wins. #CMAawards pic.twitter.com/P8hbbtmrlF

— Brothers Osborne (@brothersosborne) November 11, 2021

The guys, who are scaling the country charts with their latest single “I’m Not For Everyone,” performed the song “Younger Me” on the show which they wrote as a note to their younger selves. “The inspiration behind ‘Younger Me’ was really inspired by both, really kind of both of our stories and just the different things that we struggled with in our youth and we just made things overly complicated. I truly didn’t think I’d get to this point in my life, and I’m sure John would probably say the same for himself. And we really just wanted to really kind of almost in some ways write a note to our younger selves and just kind of tell them to hold on, hold tight, and hopefully in an effort for maybe other people out there that are going through that currently to realize there will be a moment in your life where you can look back on this and be happy that you made it through.”