Tim McGraw took the high road when he spotted a man in the crowd at one of his concerts holding his middle finger up, directed at the star.

The “Live Like You Were Dying” hitmaker told the story — which happened on his 2024 Live Like You Were Dying Tour — during a recent guest appearance on The Bobby Bones Show.

“This tour, there was this one guy, and during the middle of the show he just kept flipping me off the whole show,” McGraw recalls.

“His wife was having a great time, she was enjoying it, every time I’d look over, he’d be flipping me off and saying, ‘you suck, you suck,’ and all this other stuff.”

But rather than fight back, the country superstar came up with a better plan: Win him over.

“So I kept like, ‘I’m gonna work this guy, I’m gonna work this guy,'” McGraw says.

“About halfway through, he starts to walk to the front of the stage to make his way toward the stage, and I’m like, ‘Okay, this is gonna go one or two ways here.'”

This is when the story takes an interesting turn: As the man approached, McGraw realized he was actually military. Instead of meeting him with frustration, the country singer extended his hand for a handshake, and the man passed him a challenge coin.

According to the Department of Defense, when a military member gives you a “coin” (specifically, a challenge coin), it’s a way of showing respect, recognition, or camaraderie.

This was a big relief for the “Don’t Take the Girl” hitmaker. The man also gave him a thumbs up, and in McGraw’s head, he was saying, ‘Phew, alright, I won him over.'”

Watch Tim McGraw’s Bobby Bones interview here:

Fan encounters don’t always have a happy ending. In April, Warren Zeiders had to have a fan removed from a concert for being disrespectful. In 2023, Morgan Wallen kicked out a fan who threw a beer toward the stage, aimed at at him.

As a matter of fact, this sort of angry fan moment happens often enough that we were able to make a video compilation of them: