Weeks after their contentious breakup, Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia has accused country singer Zach Bryan of emotional abuse throughout their yearlong relationship. On Thursday’s episode of the BFFs podcast, the Barstool podcaster told co-hosts Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards that she had endured the hardest year of her life “dealing with the abuse from this dude.” LaPaglia then alleged Bryan had a habit of handing out NDAs to the women he dates, claiming he offered her $12 million and a New York apartment in exchange for her silence about their relationship. “I’m still scared right now because I’m scared of him,” LaPaglia said. “My brain’s rewired, and I’m scared to make him mad.”
Over the course of an hourlong episode, LaPaglia characterized the alleged abuse as a cycle of “build you up, beat you down, apologize over and over.” The 25-year-old said Bryan frequently screamed at her before switching tunes and begging for forgiveness — something she cried herself to sleep over “every night.” As for the NDA she claims Bryan offered her, LaPaglia said she refused to sign any paperwork or accept his money: “I’m not signing away my experiences and what I went through to protect someone that hurt me, and I’m a lot stronger than a weak man. Fuck you, and fuck your money.”
“You get to go skip off and sing your little fucking songs onstage like you’re a good dude. You get to treat people around you like shit,” she added. “Sorry, I’m not them. I don’t want your money. I don’t want in two years to buy a fucking house and think, Oh, this is the money from the dude that literally fucking destroyed me and broke me for a year.”
LaPaglia also said the singer “tried to control” what she wore and posted online, pointing to a corseted gold dress she wore to the Golden Globes in January. “That was fucking crazy … He said he didn’t want to date someone that presents themselves that way, and he unfollowed me,” she said. “He ruined my night. Everything good, anything good I did for me, he made sure to ruin it for me.”
LaPaglia and Bryan began dating in July 2023. The couple were together for a little over a year when Bryan posted an Instagram Story in October announcing they had broken up — a move LaPaglia said she was “blindsided” by. Per Us Weekly, after LaPaglia’s podcast dropped, the singer reposted an image of Jack Kerouac to his Instagram Story. “I didn’t know what to say. I felt like crying, Goddammit everybody in the world wants an explanation for your acts and for your very being,” the caption reads, quoting the writer’s 1957 novel On the Road. Shortly after, Bryan posted a glamour shot of a horse.
During Thursday’s episode, LaPaglia reiterated that she wasn’t coming forward for exposure or to take Bryan down but “for anyone else that’s been emotionally abused and for people right now being emotionally abused.”
The Cut has reached out to Bryan for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
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