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| - In February 2025, a rumor spread online that country artist Chris Stapleton had filed an "official objection" after the 2025 Grammy award for best country album went to Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter."
A Feb. 16 Facebook post included an image featuring an alleged quote from Stapleton.
(Country Music Stories on Facebook)
The text in that image read:
CHRIS STAPLETON HAS FILED AN OFFICIAL OBJECTION TO BEYONCÉ'S GRAMMY WIN
Country music has a rich history and a distinct sound that deserves to be recognized and celebrated.
We need to ensure that the awards reflect the true essence of the genre and honor those who have dedicated their lives to it.
-Chris Stapleton
One Feb. 17 repost (archived) of that image had amassed around 450,000 reactions and 28,000 comments by the time of this writing. Examples of the claim also appeared in posts on Threads (archived) and TikTok (archived).
In short, there was no demonstrable evidence to support the claim, which we've rated false.
No credible media outlets reported that Stapleton filed any objection to Beyoncé's win for best country album. A Google search for the alleged quote from the Feb. 16 Facebook post did not return any proof that Stapleton ever said those words.
No mention of any objection to Beyoncé's win appeared on Stapleton's official website or his official Instagram, Facebook or X accounts.
We've reached out to Stapleton as well as to the Recording Academy, the organization that runs the Grammy Awards, to ask about the veracity of the claim. We will update this story if and when we hear back.
The fact-checking website Lead Stories also looked into the claim, tracing it to a Feb. 9 post on a website named Fancy 4 Work. That website, as Lead Stories noted, showed hallmarks of being "a content farm or spam network," rather than a legitimate news organization.
Snopes also found signs that the article in question may have been a product of artificial intelligence software. Specifically, the article used the Greek letters "п" and "υ" instead of the look-alike Latin characters "n" and "u" in a possible attempt to trick AI text detectors. Submitting the text containing the Greek characters to the AI text detector Quillbot resulted in a "human-written" rating — but when we replaced those characters with the Latin "n" and "u," Quillbot's verdict changed to "100% of text is likely AI."
Another AI text detector, GPTZero, found that the text was likely AI-written both with and without the Greek characters.
Beyoncé, who began her music career as a member of the R&B group Destiny's Child, has experimented with different genres as a solo artist. Her album "Cowboy Carter," released in March 2024, blended elements of country, pop, R&B and rap. In addition to best country album, it also won album of the year at the 2025 Grammys.
Beyoncé said in a 2024 Instagram post that her inspiration for the album was the backlash she faced from country music fans after she performed her country-influenced song "Daddy Lessons" with country band The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks) at the 2016 Country Music Awards.
After that performance, Stapleton praised Beyoncé to Rolling Stone, saying: "She is a classy, classy lady, and I'm proud that she could take the time to come and show up."
We've looked into similar claims involving Beyoncé in the past, including a rumor that she was banned from performing at the Grand Ole Opry, the country music venue in Nashville, because she was "not country."
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