Lainey Wilson: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

When Lainey Wilson played Australia for the first time in March, she made sure to meet the country's animal ambassadors: She was holding a koala. pet a kangaroo. But it wasn't all furry fun. “I've had a bird drive me crazy twice,” Wilson says in her thick Louisiana drawl, shaking her head in bemused disbelief. “In the exact same spot. I heard it was good luck, so I said, “Go ahead. Do what you gotta do, bird.'

But if there's anyone who doesn't need luck, it's Wilson. With tenacity and courage reflected in her music, the 31-year-old rising country star has made her own. After moving to Nashville in 2011, Wilson endured a decade of heartbreaking struggles — including seven American Idol rejections. But over the past two and a half years, she's been breaking records and reaching new milestones at an astonishing rate—all without compromising her traditional country sound.

When “Save Me,” her urgent duet with Jelly Roll, hit No. 1 Advertising signon the Country Airplay chart in December, just six weeks after her solo hit, the coming-of-age fairy tale “Watermelon Moonshine,” had charted — the shortest run between No. 1s for a female artist at 34 on the chart. – history year. “Watermelon Moonshine” appeared on Wilson's most recent album, 2022 Bell Bottom Country (Broken Bow Records/BMG), which won both the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and Country Music Association Awards for album of the Year, as well as the Grammy for Best Country album — only the ninth record to complete this trifecta. And at November's CMA Awards, Wilson became the first woman to win artist of the year since Taylor Swift in 2011 and the first artist since Garth Brooks in 1991 to win best new artist in the same year and female artist of the year in next.

Read the full Billboard cover story here.