Superstar Beyoncé called out country music. That’s huge.

With her new album, ‘Act II: Cowboy Carter,’ Beyoncé calls out the country music industry.

On March 19, Beyoncé took to Instagram to announce the 10-day countdown to the release of her highly anticipated country album, “Act II: Cowboy Carter.” In the announcement, she also revealed the personal reasons behind her full-length foray into country music.

“This album has been over five years in the making,” she wrote. “It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t.”

It didn’t take long for the folks to connect the dots between Beyoncé’s statement and her 2016 appearance at the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards.

Alongside the Dixie Chicks, now known as The Chicks, Beyoncé ripped through a hard-stomping rendition of “Lemonade”’s “Daddy Lessons” that was equal parts funky and folksy.

But the story — the one that exploded across the internet and captured the attention of people far outside of Nashville — was less about the performance itself and more about the country music industry’s reaction to it.

From the archives:CMA disputes Beyonce social media controversy

Beyoncé’s 2016 CMA performance generates backlash from country music industry

There was plenty of evidence to support the notion that Beyoncé’s appearance was less-than-welcome at country music’s premier celebration. ABC’s cameras scanned the audience throughout the national broadcast, and while some artists seemed to be enjoying Beyoncé’s performance, others stared on with blank faces.

The day after the show, Travis Tritt, one of the most successful country artists of the 90s, took to Twitter and asserted that “[w]e can stand on our own and don’t need pop artists on our awards shows.” He later backtracked a bit, stating that his complaint wasn’t Beyoncé-specific and that he’d long bemoaned sharing country stages with non-country artists. But his question, “I want to know when the BET or SoulTrain awards are gonna ask a country artist to perform on their awards show?” seemed particularly pointed.

Finally, there was the speculation that veteran country artist Alan Jackson walked out while Beyoncé was on stage, so upset was he by her audacity to infringe upon country music’s hallowed grounds. The speculation was confirmed by Chris Willman, a current senior music writer at Variety who was then writing for Billboard and spoke to an unnamed Nashville manager about the Beyoncé-Chicks collaboration.

“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 manager said. “The overall show was great, but in my opinion that seemed out of place and felt forced…I was sitting behind Alan Jackson, and he actually stood up from the front row and walked out in [the] middle of the performance, so I think that spoke volumes for the traditional, real country acts.”

What was unknown, however, was how Beyoncé may have been impacted by the backlash, both what was known to the public, as well as what may have happened behind the scenes. But now, thanks to an Instagram post and a direct reference to “criticisms” and “limitations,” the whole world — country music industry included — knows exactly how Beyoncé felt when she traveled to Nashville in November 2016.