Zach Bryan and Brianna Chickenfry’s Breakup Drama, Explained

Zach Bryan and Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia have broken up after more than a year of dating … but it doesn’t seem like she was ready for us to know that yet. On October 22, Bryan wrote in an Instagram Story that he has “had an incredibly hard year personally and struggled through some pretty severe things,” explaining that he “thought it would be beneficial for both of us to go our different ways.” In a YouTube video posted later that day, LaPaglia said the relationship had only just ended the day before, and claimed that Bryan didn’t call or text her to give her a head’s up that he was going to make the news public. “I wanted to just like be hurt for a week and like lay in bed, you know?” she said, adding that she was feeling “blindsided.” Below, here’s what to know, including how this couple met and why people are bringing up Raya.

Bryan is a 28-year-old country singer-songwriter who released his fifth album, The Great American Bar Scene, in July. You might also recognize him from pissing off a bunch of Swifties last month by comparing her to Kanye in what he said was a drunk tweet about their discography.

LaPaglia, known online as Brianna Chickenfry because of a viral Vine, is an influencer and Barstool Sports podcaster. The 25-year-old co-hosts the BFFs podcast with Barstool founder Dave Portnoy (who made his loyalties clear with a post dedicating Taylor Swift’s song “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” to LaPaglia after the breakup went public).

Bryan and LaPaglia met at the Academy of Country Music Awards in May 2023. She later attended one of his concerts, and was invited up on stage alongside her other BFFs co-host, Josh Richards. That June, LaPaglia’s Plan Bri Uncut podcast released an episode titled “Eat the Rich (Except Zach Bryan).” Bryan slid into her DMs afterward and they started “chatting,” LaPaglia later recalled. She officially confirmed the relationship in July.

Bryan did not directly share a reason for the split in his October 22 Instagram Story. His statement expressed “love and respect” for LaPaglia and suggested that he is “not perfect,” adding that he is sorry to anyone he let down. “I failed people that love me and mostly myself,” he concluded.

In an October 22 YouTube video titled “Love you guys, I’ll be back soon,” she noted that the breakup happened on October 21 (the same day she posted a cryptic note on Instagram about how “life goes on, even if you don’t want it to”). LaPaglia, who said she had been “crying for like five days,” questioned through tears how you can love someone “unconditionally, through stuff that you shouldn’t” and then “be discarded of in a few days.” She added that she will share the details of what happened later; in an Instagram Story, she similarly said that she will “hop off social media for a while and attempt to heal privately,” then return once she’s “ready to talk.”

The day before the split was confirmed, a Reddit user claimed that Bryan had popped up on the members-only dating app Raya. Given the timeline outlined by LaPaglia, the internet has been busy riffing off of the possibility that Bryan began swiping immediately after the breakup. Meanwhile, an unnamed source has claimed to Us Weekly that the singer was actually on dating apps during their relationship, and that someone sent LaPaglia his Raya profile. According to the source, Bryan denied allegations of infidelity, but agreed they should break up.