Toby Keith let a reporter know on Sunday, at the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards press room, that it’s not okay if people write stories about him that make him look bad, especially if those stories are not true.

Here’s how it started. Ethan Hawke recently wrote a story for Rolling Stone where he detailed an alleged confrontation between country legend Kris Kristofferson and an unidentified singer, who is quite obviously supposed to be Toby. The story got picked up in Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper on Friday.

When Peter Cooper, the Tennessean reporter responsible for Friday’s item, asked Toby a question, Toby went off like a machine gun.

“You from The Tennessean? You wrote that article?" asked Toby of the reporter. "You thought that was funny, calling me Moby Teeth? You better watch yourself.”

“You thought you could dance around it, funny ha-ha, but it was me. Who else wrote a song about bombing enemies? Who else does car commercials?" As for the man behind the Rolling Stone item, he added, "You think Ethan Hawke knows me? You think Ethan Hawke can sing a chorus to one of my songs? Or one of my 62 million spins? Doubt it! So you took the story and you Moby Teethed it and took it to another level."

Attacking Cooper with endless streams of F-bombs, Toby pointed out that Kristofferson has come out in the singer’s defense.

"You think Kris Kristofferson motherf***d me? Kris Kristofferson said that sh** didn’t happen. He e-mailed Rolling Stone and said that sh*t didn’t happen. And you still wrote your story?"

“Who supersized the story? You take credit for that? You and Ethan Hawke are guilty. He doesn’t know me, that di*k didn’t call me, ask me what I thought.”

"I’m struggling being here with you in the room. You ran it and took it to supersize French fries and now you have to answer for it."

"You’ve never sh*t in your f-ing a** like you have right now. Do you want to ask me another question?" To which Cooper wisely shook his head "No."

Toby’s tirade had the ACM press room at a standstill. A Witness said:

"You could hear a pin drop. It looked like Toby was going to knock the crap out of Cooper, who looked horrified!"

According to another source, that was Toby’s goal all along. The insider explains that the outspoken star had talked on Saturday night about looking forward to the chance to have it out with Cooper at the awards.

Don’t mess with Toby Keith, he’ll call you out on it!