Responses to her performance were mixed. Plenty of viewers called it a highlight of the awards show, but Chicks frontwoman Natalie Maines subsequently said she fielded some unwelcoming comments from “racist a–holes.”
On Twitter, artist manager and Black Opry co-director Tanner Davenport recalled being in the crowd that night and watching as “a woman in front of me yelled ‘Get that Black b—h off the stage!’”
Not long after the awards show, one unnamed artist manager also alleged to Billboard that he saw Alan Jackson walk out of his front row seat in protest of Beyoncé’s performance, although the evidence that that ever happened is relatively slim.
