Zach Bryan Tried To Fight Gavin Adcock At Born & Raised Festival

The country bros are fighting! Zach Bryan, the Oklahoman singer-songwriter who is known to have a little bit of a temper, made a surprise appearance at his home state's Born & Raised Festival over the weekend to perform his recent single "Madeline" with its collaborator Gabriella Rose. In that song, Bryan sings: "Are you back with that boy again that deserves a broken jaw?" After singing that line at Born & Raised, Bryan yelled out Gavin Adcock's name.

Adcock, a fellow young country singer-songwriter, performed at Born & Raised that evening, but this town evidently ain't big enough for the both of them and they almost got in a fistfight. For context: A beef between Adcock and Bryan began back in July after Bryan publicly responded to a fan who complained online that Bryan had driven away from a fan who waited four hours outside MetLife for an autograph. "You're not entitled after someone plays two and a half hours to a picture or hello," Bryan wrote. "GOMD [get off my dick]." The fan he was responding to later added that they were 14 years old.

That post started doing numbers, and Adcock tweeted this in response to it shortly thereafter: "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 and spent/ parents spent a ton of money to see you. He’s got feeling too and a you’re a 'grown man' nearly 30. They’re the only reason you are around." Adcock later went on a Rolling Stone podcast to talk about the situation, saying he thinks Bryan might not be "that great of a person." Thus the beef began smoking.

After Bryan's surprise name-dropping appearance at Born & Raised, he and Adcock crossed paths on opposite sides of a backstage fence at the festival. “You wanna fight like a man? Get ‘em to open the gate,” Bryan said. “Want me to throw a beer at you?” he added. (Adcock encourages his fans to chuck beers at his shows.) Bryan then scaled the chainlink fence between them. Security intervened before anyone got hurt, although Adcock didn't seem very interested in fighting back either way: He wrote in an Instagram comment later that he "wasn't going to jail over that [psycho]" especially because he was just moments away from headlining a festival right by Bryan's hometown, which is a pretty good flex.

Here's a video explainer with the relevant footage:

As much as Bryan likes to ruffle people's feathers, this isn't the first time Adcock has gotten into it with another country musician this year. Adcock was not a fan of Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé's Grammy-winning foray into country. Her fellow Texan Charley Crockett -- who's long lamented the bro-ification of the country music genre -- came to Beyoncé's defense following Adcock's remarks. That resulted in even more posts from Adcock questioning Crockett's legitimacy in country.

Anyway, Adcock is now on tour with contentious country bro Morgan Wallen, who recently flipped off a shirt Adcock was holding up that had Crockett's face on it:

UPDATE: On Sunday, Adcock shared his take on the incident:

“Like I already said, I don't think Zach Bryan's a very good person. He wasn't locked out of the festival. He had been there all day with his multiple security guards. He saw me standing between my buses when he got here and saw me walk on my bus when I went to watch the Georgia game. 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. So he had plenty of opportunity through the whole day to do whatever he wanted to do, but decided he was gonna wait like an hour before my set while I was standing out there. And no artist that cares about their fans is gonna fight right before their set, missing going on and disappointing fans that spent way too much money to be there. I wasn't even mad, didn't even have a single reason to fight him. After he had already left, before my set, I was standing outside. He pulls up in a pickup truck outside the gate and starts giving out threats. So I just decided to stir him up to the point where he jumped over the fence. I don't think anybody's scared of Zach Bryan. I'm just an adult, and fighting him would only mean going to jail, missing my set, and falling into a Zach Bryan lawsuit. And we all know he likes to manipulate people with money. He knew where I was all day. He knew my set time. He knew where I'd be standing. And he created this whole ‘I’m badass’ jump-over-the-fence narrative just to try to make himself look bigger or tougher even though he could have just walked on in the gate. He had been in there all day. And at the end of the day, I know my decision I made was right. I didn't take the Zach Bryan bait. And I'll be praying for him to get better because he sure needs it.”