Gavin Adcock doesn’t have any Number One country songs yet, but he’s determined that country music fans know his name. And, to his credit, many probably do.
Before he ever released his debut album for Warner Music Nashville in 2024, Actin’ Up Again, the Georgia native was already becoming an expert in both making and embracing viral moments. He parlayed his 2021 dismissal from the Georgia Southern Football team for shot-gunning a beer on top of a moving school bus into social media fame, which in turn helped shine a light on his songwriting. His song “Ain’t No Cure,” released that same year, has since been streamed more than 70 million times on Spotify.
And last May, Adcock used an arrest for reckless driving as a way to sell merch with his mugshot photo, all of it leading up to the release of Own Worst Enemy, his new album that debuted at Number 4 on the country albums chart in August. (The charges were eventually dismissed.)
But Adcock is especially turning heads for doing something that’s rarely done in Nashville: picking fights with other artists. These are his biggest beefs.
Gavin Adcock vs. Beyoncé
In June 2025, Adcock let loose on Beyoncé during a concert appearance, telling his audience that he was determined to usurp her position on the Apple Music country charts. “You can tell her we’re coming for her fucking ass,” he said onstage, going on to declare Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning album Cowboy Carter anything but country music. “That shit ain’t country music, and it ain’t ever been country music, and it ain’t gonna be country music.”
Adcock proceeded to double down on his statements in a series of social-media posts and later expanded on his “not country” point of view during an interview on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast. “I don’t think Beyoncé cares about country fans,” he said. “I think she has brought over pop fans to make whatever music she wants to make.”
For her part, Beyoncé hasn’t responded to Adcock’s comments.
Gavin Adcock vs. Zach Bryan
Earlier this July, Adcock inserted himself into a back-and-forth between Zach Bryan and a teenage fan, who lamented waiting in vain for Bryan to sign an autograph following a performance at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. “You’re not entitled after someone plays two and a half hours to a picture or a hello,” Bryan wrote, adding the acronym “GOMD.”
“If you can’t handle the criticism of a 14-year-old old why do people idolize you? That kid was head over heels to meet you,” Adcock wrote online. “He’s got feeling too and a you’re a ‘grown man’ nearly 30. They’re the only reason you are around.”
During his appearance on Nashville Now, Adcock further criticized Bryan’s response. “It wasn’t about not wanting to sign autographs after a show, it’s like letting a 14-year-old kid rant, without saying, ‘get off my dick.’ You’re bigger than that,” Adock said.
Then Adcock said he felt that Bryan isn’t the public persona he projects. “I think that Zach Bryan puts on a big mask in his day-to-day life and sometimes he can’t help but rip it off and show his true colors,” he said. “I don’t know if Zach Bryan’s really that great of a person.”
“I wouldn’t say Zach Bryan is my buddy. I ain’t his buddy, he ain’t my buddy. I ain’t met the guy,” he continued. “I don’t need him.”
All of it came to a head on Sept. 13 at the Born & Raised Festival in Pryor, Oklahoma, where Adcock was scheduled to perform. Earlier in the day, Bryan showed up to play a surprise song during the set of songwriter Gabriella Rose, and then, according to Adcock, hung around trying to find him.
“[Bryan] proceeded to go to other artists and ask them, ‘Where’s Gavin? Where’s Gavin?’ and their guests, and treat them like dog shit, flipping them birds, and saying just douchebag stuff to them all day,” Adcock claimed in an Instagram video. “He had plenty of opportunity through the whole day to do whatever he wanted to do, but decided he was going to wait like an hour before my set.”
Adcock said Bryan eventually pulled up in a pickup truck to a fence near the backstage area and began shouting threats. “I just decided to stir him up to the point where he jumped over the fence,” Adcock said. In a video of the incident, Bryan is seen scaling a barbed-wire fence and lunging in Adcock’s direction, before being held back by security guards.
“I know my decision I made was right. I didn’t take the Zach Bryan bait,” Adcock said of choosing not to fight Bryan. “I’ll be praying for him to get better — because he sure needs it.”
On Sept. 14, he posted another video of himself shot-gunning a beer, with a caption apparently aimed at Bryan: “Dude is the biggest ‘I’ll sue you bro’ of all time. Too smart to fight little boys.”
Gavin Adcock vs. Charley Crockett
Up until the backstage run-in at the Born & Raised Festival, Adcock’s feud with cowboy singer Charley Crockett was his most high-profile and ongoing.
In August, Crockett, a former street performer and Texas native, addressed country music fans in an Instagram post that focused on country music’s fascination with “authenticity.”
“Hey country folks. Beyoncé ain’t the source of your discontent. It was 25 years of bro country,” Crockett wrote, referencing the highly produced brand of country music that became popular around 2012.
Crockett also seemed to allude to the success of Morgan Wallen, writing “#1 country artist on earth listen’s [sic] to nothing but rap,” and to Adcock’s tirade about Beyoncé. “I don’t need to put down a black woman to advance my music,” he wrote.
Adcock fired back and, in a post, called Crockett “the dipshit of the week” and accused him of being a “cosplay cowboy.” “I got more cowshit under my pinky than you have seen your whole fuckin life,” said Adcock, who used to haul cattle in his home state of Georgia.
On Sept. 4, Adcock ratcheted up the feud when he appeared onstage during Morgan Wallen’s tour stop in Toronto and held up a “$10 Cowboy Tour” shirt that Crockett sells on his website, which is also branded with Crockett’s face. Wallen flashed two middle fingers at the shirt while Adcock laughed.
