Alan Jackson has been known throughout his career for putting his foot down for the integrity of country music, regardless of the ramifications. That’s what happened at the 1994 ACM Awards when Jackson instructed his drummer to play without sticks when the producers insisted his band mimic playing to a backing track. Then at the 1999 CMA Awards, Alan Jackson notoriously stopped down his rendition of “Pop A Top” to break into George Jones’ “Choices” after the producers told Jones he would only be allowed to play a shortened version of the song and Jones left in protest.

Well apparently Alan Jackson let his displeasure be known again at an awards show, though the cameras and much of the press didn’t catch it. At the 50th Annual CMA Awards on Wednesday, November 2nd—where Jackson performed with George Strait and participated in other festivities—Alan Jackson left his seat in the front row when pop star Beyonce came out on stage for her performance of “Daddy Lessons.”

Rumors that Jackson walked out on the performance have been swirling ever since the CMA’s, but it wasn’t confirmed by anyone on site until an unnamed Nashville manager who was sitting near Jackson during the awards spilled the beans to Billboard.

“I think it was a flat performance overall and a lot of industry people I have talked with were not impressed for a variety of reasons,” said the manager to Billboard. “The overall show was great, but in my opinion that seemed out of place and felt forced. It just didn’t fit the night to me, celebrating the 50 years, and the Dixie Chicks seemed like her backup band on it, without enough of a real shout-out to them. I was sitting behind Alan Jackson, and he actually stood up from the front row and walked out in middle of the performance, so I think that spoke volumes for the traditional, real country acts.”

However, he wasn’t. The morning of the show, Jackson said he understood it, and on that night in 2016, he left the show early for a totally different reason.

Beyonce’s return to country with “Texas Hold ‘Em” has made Jackson’s protest relevant again. His reported actions on Nov. 2, 2016 continue to gas up a debate about what is and isn’t country music.

As you read through newly-recognized evidence, ask yourself if response to Beyonce or cross-genre influence would be any different if traditionalists didn’t have that Alan folklore to push off of.

Alan Jackson and Beyonce at the CMA Awards — the Origin Point:

There’s one source for this tall tale. Four days after the CMAs, Billboard quoted an unnamed Nashville manager as saying: “I was sitting behind Alan Jackson, and he actually stood up from the front row and walked out in middle of the performance, so I think that spoke volumes for the traditional, real country acts.”

Unnamed sources are only worth the publication, and Billboard‘s reputation is sound. Had a celebrity gossip site been the source, it’s likely we’d have ignored this, especially because the source hardly sounds like an unbiased narrator.

“I think it was a flat performance overall, and a lot of industry people I have talked with were not impressed for a variety of reasons,” the mystery person said. “The overall show was great, but in my opinion, that seemed out of place and felt forced.”

Problem No. 2: Logistics 

Jackson performed twice that night. He opened the show with an all-star medley and then — about nine songs later — sang two songs with George Strait. Keith Urban’s performance of “Blue Ain’t Your Color” was all that was between this second performance and Beyonce and the Chicks’ “Daddy Lessons.”

This means Jackson had between four and eight minutes (assuming a commercial break) to finish his song, do what he needed to do post-performance and walk back to his seat. That’s totally doable, except that even in 2016 he was a man moving slowly due to what we would later find out is Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

Do we think he gritted his teeth and rushed back to his seat just to leave two minutes later?

Why We Think Alan Jackson “Protested” Beyonce

The Billboard quote is the main reason this story ran wild, but Jackson seems like the guy who would do this kind of thing, doesn’t he? Cite his 1999 CMAs disruption, when he switched to singing “Choices” as a way to defend George Jones.

Rick Diamond, Getty Images

There was also his 1994 ACMs protest, when he told his drummer to play without sticks because he didn’t like being told to play to a track. There have been numerous confirmed instances when Jackson spoke up to defend traditional country music from a pop invasion. Each of these examples was big, bold and public.

Jackson stands up loud and proud for what he believes in — he doesn’t skunk away in a manner that literally only one person sees.

Was Alan Jackson Even in the Crowd?

We watched back on 90 percent of the 2016 CMA Awards on YouTube, Daily Motion and anywhere else performance videos live in time. At no point did the camera turn to Jackson and his wife, Denise, who were supposedly in the front row. You won’t find him in the background, and you won’t spot the white cowboy hat he wore all night during panning crowd shots.

Jackson has been described as quiet or shy, so a backstage room or a tour bus are more likely places to retreat between performances. That is, unless there was a small backstage table set up for the legend and his friends to watch the other big event on television that night.