Darius Rucker was the recipient of the 2026 Veterans Voice Award Offered by USAA’s Honor Via Motion at the 52nd American Music Awards on Monday evening. The Hootie and the Blowfish frontman and diamond-selling nation musician has continued to champion those that serve by means of his assist of army organizations just like the Navy Warriors Assist Basis. Throughout the course of his profession, he’s carried out on a number of abroad USO excursions and at occasions in assist of veterans such because the DoD Warrior Video games.
“It’s called the Veterans Voice Award, and I take that to heart big time because all of us can use our voice to support these brave men and women who are serving our country,” Rucker stated throughout his acceptance speech. “We received to ensure that they really feel appreciated — not simply on large days like Memorial Day — however each day we ought to be doing this.
“I’ve been really fortunate because I’ve been all over the world, and I hear stories from service members who are stationed everywhere. One of the biggest thing they’ve given me is perspective, because these people have been through things that we could never imagine — ever — and you learn real quick what resilience looks like when you’re sitting talking to the military families.”
He concluded with, “As soon as I used to be speaking to a veteran, and he stated to me that when any individual says to them, ‘Thank you for your service,’ he says, ‘Thank you for what we’re serving,’ and that’s what all of us ought to be doing proper now. We ought to be striving to reside, to turn out to be a neighborhood and turn out to be a rustic that we deserve what they sacrificed.
“So tonight, I want us all to be as loud as we can and yell and use our voices to let these folks know that we love them, and we appreciate them, and we thank them.”
The AMAs ceremony, fittingly broadcast on Memorial Day throughout Navy Appreciation Month, included Rucker reuniting together with his Hootie and the Blowfish members, who carried out “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You” from their 22x-platinum debut, 1994’s Cracked Rear View.
The American Music Awards had been created by Dick Clark Productions. DCP is owned by Penske Media Company, The Hollywood Reporter‘s guardian firm, in a subsidiary three way partnership between Penske Media and Eldridge.
