12 Of The Biggest Country Music Feuds Of All Time

In a genre so concerned with booze-filled brawls, self-sabotaged romances, and hell raisin', it's perhaps no surprise that many of the songsters and songstresses that populate the country music scene have gotten into some pretty big beefs over the years. Although some of these beefs emerge from petty interpersonal intrigue or music industry machinations, other times they can be a battle for the soul of the genre itself.  

"There's a reason why it's called 'country music,'" Willie Nelson, of "On the Road Again" fame, once said (via Hank FM). "It's from the country." Indeed, country stars' grievances don't just exist in double-entendre diss track lyrics or on social media. Sometimes, they take their beef to the dirt roads. So, saddle up. From the legendary Dolly Parton to Gen-Z star Gavin Adcock, the latter of whom has a list of beefs longer than Taylor Swift's "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)," let's take a look at the feuds that got country musicians' cowboy boots a-stomping...

Dolly Parton had a complicated bond with her first manager, Porter Wagoner. Well, complicated is putting it lightly... this was more of a feud. "We had a lot of duets together, but we were like oil and water, so to speak," the "9 to 5" hitmaker told The Martha Stewart Podcast in 2024, almost two decades after her former employer passed away. "We just kind of bashed heads," she added.

It's not surprising when you consider that while the pair were working together, Parton was becoming one of country's hottest names, but Wagoner wasn't upping her paycheck at all. "He would buy me all these things and say, 'Consider that your raise,'" wrote Parton in her 2025 memoir, "Star of the Show: My Life on Stage" (via the Independent). "I said, 'I don't want the gifts. I want to buy my own gifts. I want the money.'"

Although Parton confirmed that the pair were really friends, the horn-locking didn't end after their five-year contract was up. In 1979, according to American Songwriter, Wagoner filed a $3 million lawsuit against her, claiming that he was (somehow) entitled to a cut of her earnings for the rest of her career. Despite the needless legalese, thankfully, the pair actually did make up prior to Wagoner's death.

These days, awards discourse is rife. Therefore, certain factions of the internet will always have issues regarding the results. But it's another thing entirely to start a fire when an artist you dislike gets a trophy. Well, that's what Charlie Rich did to John Denver. Imagine Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the VMAs, but on steroids...

Rich, who'd had issues with alcohol in the lead-up to the 1975 Country Music Association Awards and scored zero nominations that year, took a role as a presenter. But an awards show with a late stage time plus alcohol equalled one inebriated award giver. As Rich announced Denver as Entertainer of the Year, after ripping open the envelope in the most unceremonious of fashions, he pulled out a lighter and set the cue card ablaze.

That's when talk of a feud began, and with Rich passing away in 1995, we just don't know if this one ever got resolved. Although the "Rollin' With the Flow" singer did admit he made a faux pas. "It may have been that I had been overworked ... maybe I was rebelling but not against John Denver and not against country music," Rich told NPR in 1992. "It was just a mistake."

When it comes to country music, Billy Ray Cyrus has done it all. His album "Some Gave All" has sold over 20 million copies, he's started a musical dynasty to rival the Jacksons, and had success in the rap game with Lil Nas X. The song that got the weed a'tumblin' in his career was his 1992 smash "Achy Breaky Heart". Travis Tritt, Cyrus's peer and Grand Ole Opry regular, however, wasn't too impressed with the track that reached number four on Billboard.

As per Taste of Country, the "Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares" crooner said Cyrus's song was, to use modern parlance, unserious and didn't have much to say. Cue a war of words. "There have been [haters], perhaps due to paranoia or insecurities, or perhaps they consider themselves a self-proclaimed critic, but tonight this award is from you, the fans," boomed Cyrus at the 1993 American Music Awards upon collecting his trophy for Favorite Country Single. "To those people who don't like 'Achy Breaky Heart,'" he added. "Here's a quarter; call someone who cares!" Talk about thinly veiled.

The pair eventually reconciled in 2002, taking the stage together at a tribute concert for country hall of famer, Waylon Jennings. Tritt also took the blame, noting, as per American Songwriter, "You just don't say anything negative about anybody. Period." But, it seems that many country artists didn't get that memo...

"I hate it," said Natalie Maine of country-trio The Chicks about Toby Keith's track "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" in 2002 (via People). It was his screed against those responsible for 9/11 or, as Maine has it, "[The song] targets an entire culture – and not just the bad people who did bad things ... You've got to have some tact." Adding that, "Anybody can write, 'We'll put a boot in your ass.' But a lot of people agree with it." It's important to put this disagreement in context. After 9/11, tensions in America were at fever pitch. Much of the country was glued to the television and paranoid about another attack, with anti-Muslim sentiment rife. It was a volatile atmosphere, to say the least. 

So, Keith didn't exactly accept Maine's comments as constructive criticism. The "Whisky Girl" singer responded by showing edited images of Maine with Saddam Hussein, Iraq's then-leader and someone many Americans wrongly believed was responsible for the attacks, at his shows.

Not backing down, Maine escalated the beef further. At the 2003 Academy of Country Music Awards, she wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the characters "FUTK." We'll let you work that one out for yourselves. Subtle, it ain't. Yet, that same year, the often-unapologetic troubadour Keith had a Damascene conversion after a personal tragedy and said he regretted the beef. Here's how Keith and The Chicks moved on from the drama.

"The phone will ring and it'll be him, and I'll maybe not answer," said Carrie Underwood in 2008 (via NBC New York). That "him" was Tony Romo, an NFL quarterback who was romantically linked to Underwood a year prior, and was then dating pop diva-turned country singer Jessica Simpson. To put it in a modern context, this is essentially the whole Madeline Argy, Ice Spice, and Central Cee drama for country-oriented elder millennials.

So was Romo a really "Cowboy Casonova"? ​​"Tony and I both laughed at that," responded Simpson. "We got a chuckle out of it." As proof, she'd checked her beau's phone, and there was no sign of any calls to or from Underwood. But Simpson's clapback didn't end there. In a stunt straight out of the Natalie Maine playbook, she donned a slogan t-shirt saying "Real Girls Eat Meat," sartorially side-eyeing Underwood's vegetarianism. Regardless of whether this beef was real or a Quorn alternative, it was certainly heating up. At a time when the "Twilight" movies were creating Team Edward and Team Jacob partisans online, there were also headlines like "I'm Team Underwood" in magazines.

Later the same year, however, Simpson dismissed any notions of a beef. "I respect [Underwood] and hopefully she respects me," she said, as per The Boot. "We've just dated the same guy – that's it!"

As Nashville legend Harlan Howard once put it, as per Rolling Stone, "Country music is three chords and the truth." Naturally, then, Eric Church wasn't too happy with Garth Brooks playing fast and loose with that established truth when he lip-synced at the Country Music Association Awards in 2017. Brooks' performance was more three chords, the truth, and a backing track.

"To me, lip-synching is and always will be a red line. It's fabricated. I don't want young artists thinking it's OK, because it's not," the "Drink in My Hand" bard told Rolling Stone. "F*** that!" he added. "I can speak for myself – I'm not lip-synching." Brooks' excuse? He was in the midst of a tour that had more shows than days. In a last-minute decision, he decided he'd give a better account of his song "Ask Me How I Know" by lip-syncing to a backing track.

The CMA Awards have always been a place for arguments to accelerate. So, perhaps Church and Brooks' beef is no surprise. Heck, the show even makes county fans annoyed. Here's why the CMA Awards Entertainer of the Year has fans seeing red.

November 2020 was a strange time. There was a record amount of coronavirus cases and a US election. So, something that might've gone under your radar that month was Tyler Hubbard, of Florida Georgia Line fame, unfollowing his bandmate, Brian Kelley.

What gave? "Real friends don't always agree with [you] but they do respect your right to have an opinion," said Brittany Kelley, Brian's wife, in an Instagram story following the unfollowing (via Smooth Radio). "A lot of people need to look up the definition of a democracy and bipartisanship and learn that." Indeed, rumors said the band was polarized politically. As one user on X quipped, "When Florida Georgia Line got together to sing 'I Love My Country' the two of them meant entirely different things."

Two years later, the band split up. But Hubbard denied it was political. "​​Me and [Kelley] and FGL dynamic had nothing, not one thing, to do with politics," he told the "Human School Podcast." "But during the political tension – it was around the election – and [Kelley] had become very vocal with his political views, even though we had decided way early on in our career that we're not a political band. We're not ever going to talk about politics." Is it a coincidence they broke up after things got political? We'll let you be the judge.

Brittany Aldean praised her parents in a 2022 Instagram GRWM caption for, as she put it, "not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase." Nashville singer-songwriter Maren Morris wasn't a fan of that post. "It's so easy to, like, not be a scumbag human?" she responded on X.  Morris then gave the wife of "She's Country" singer Jason Aldean a new attention-grabbing nickname, "Insurrection Barbie." Undeterred, Brittany added fuel to the fire by comparing gender-affirming surgery to female genital mutilation and selling merch inspired by the feud, as per Entertainment Tonight. To which Morris, one of the 2019 CMA Awards' best dressed stars, released tees of her own in aid of Trans Line Life.

But it's been a while. Was there a reconciliation here? No. "I don't really have any tweets that I've regretted," Morris told Cosmopolitan in 2024. "I will say I didn't think my 'Insurrection Barbie' tweet to a certain someone would have picked up so much momentum, but I stand by it." The same year, Brittany also told her side of the story. "[Morris and her friends] just have it out for me for whatever reason," she said on the "Try That in a Small Town" podcast. "Which, to be so pro-woman and all the bulls*** ... you're not, because I've never said a word to you and you come for me." 

Meanwhile, Brittany's husband couldn't keep himself out of beefs either...

"Dare [Jason] Aldean to write his next single himself. That's what we try in my small town," wrote Jason Isbell on X in 2023 (as per Consequence of Sound). "I'm challenging you to write a song yourself," he added in a separate post. "All alone. If you're a recording artist, make some art. I want to hear it." Isbell, without any subtlety, was referencing Aldean's song "Try That In A Small Town." ​​

Why was Aldean's new single getting major pushback? The track had courted controversy for many reasons. Notably, the music video shows the Georgia native performing on the site of a historic lynching, plus the song's lyrics are inflammatory, suggesting any protestors who disrespect cops or the American flag will be met with a swift demise. Aldean protested his innocence, however, dismissing the criticism as false and dangerous. Here's the real meaning behind Aldean's "Try That In A Small Town." 

Isbell then had a gripe with Aldean's response due to the song's liner notes, which have the songwriters listed as Kelley Lovelace, Kurt Allison, Neil Thrasher, and Tully Kennedy. No Aldean to be found. "Seriously how do you defend the content of a song you weren't even in the room for?" Isbell asked in another X post (via Uproxx). "You just got it from your producer." Considering both artists live in Nashville, we just hope they don't bump into each other at Kroger.

Unlike Jason Isbell, who was accused by fellow country star Jake Owens of being a desktop-dwelling detractor, Zach Bryan and Gavin Adcock took their beef from the keyboards to the dirt roads. But first, let's take it back to where it began. In July 2024, the "Cancel Zach Bryan" movement gained traction after he left a show without acknowledging fans who'd waited hours to meet him. One of those unhappy fans was a 14-year-old who filmed the singer leaving and posted it online.

Bryan then commented under the fan's video, as per Holler, suggesting that fans were not entitled to a photograph. That's where Adcock stepped in. "If you can't handle the criticism of a 14 year old why do people idolize you? That kid was head over heels to meet you," wrote Adcock on X. "[The fans are] the only reason you are around." But social media is hardly the smoky saloon or dust-filled road that these country beefs would idyllically take place in, is it?

However, they'd soon take it there. That September, a video posted to Country Central showed Bryan scaling a backstage festival fence to confront Adcock on a dusty road. This was not a one-on-one stand-off, however, as security teams circled both musicians. It ends with Bryan pulled away, and Adcock walking away. If you're involved in online beef, please do touch grass... just not in that way.

Gavin Adcock and Charley Crockett had beef over Queen B. No, we don't mean Brooks and Dunn's Brooks. These two country stars beefed over Beyoncé. In 2025, Beyoncé won two genre-specific Grammys, Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Album, for "Cowboy Carter." But, in doing so, she'd inadvertently angered Adcock. "That s*** ain't country music and it ain't ever been country music, and it ain't gonna be country music," he said about Beyoncé's country-coded album at one of his shows (via Billboard). He's one of many celebs who have publicly slammed Beyoncé. 

The cowboy-hatted crooner Crockett then jumped to Beyoncé's defence. "[Beyoncé] ain't the source of your discontent," he wrote in an Instagram post. "I don't need to put down a black woman to advance my music," he added. Although Adcock wasn't named, it didn't take Benoit Blanc to decode this jibe. Adcock responded by stating his country credentials on X, "I got more cows*** under my pinky then you have seen your whole f***** life." 

They have seemingly made up, though. Adcock allegedly received a bouquet and album courtesy of Crockett when they played in the same town. The "Run Your Mouth" singer shared a video of the gifts in a tongue-in-cheek Instagram post, making sure to note he was playing a bigger venue. It's kinda giving not over it. 

Miranda Lambert's post-divorce transformation can't go unnoticed. If this story is anything to go by, it was an emotional and physical transformation. After a frosty 15 years, in 2026, Kasey Musgraves announced she and Lambert had warmed to each other. Heck, they'd even been making music together. As one country fan on Reddit dubbed it, "Cowgirl, so confusing." But why did these country queens have beef in the first place?

Well, Musgraves penned Lambert's first hit, "Mama's Broken Heart." Despite that song going all the way to number one with Lambert's voice, the "Dry Spell" singer wasn't in a giving mood. "It was gonna be my first single and I loved the song so much," Musgraves told NPR. "Then, the song gets pitched to [Lambert] without my consent or knowledge. It was a tricky situation." The debacle meant that Musgraves didn't consider Lambert a pal for a long time... we're talking years.

"I was like, 'I know we've had our s*** over the years,'" said Musgraves, recalling her successful pitch to Lambert. "I'm not trying to be your friend ... But I think this would be a pretty f****** funny song.'" While writing the duet, titled "Horses and Divorces," they ironed out their differences and worked it out on the remix, so to speak. As Musgraves put it, "[Everyone should] sit down and poke fun at each other, have a beer and call it a day."