The breakup saga of country singer Zach Bryan and influencer Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia just reached a new low.
The couple split last month after Bryan reportedly “blindsided” LaPaglia by announcing their breakup via his Instagram Stories, she reported in her own Instagram post. Over the past few weeks, LaPaglia has opened up about the split on her podcast, BFFs, accusing Bryan of manipulation and emotional abuse.
On Saturday, she posted on her Instagram Stories that she would be attending a much-publicized UFC fight at Madison Square Garden. Bryan, who is currently touring, wouldn’t be there, but he apparently didn’t want LaPaglia to forget about him: He had his management team request that fighter David Onama shout him out after the match.
“I want to come back here next month to watch — what’s it called? — Zach Bryan for the concert,” Onama told Joe Rogan in a post-fight interview before the camera panned to LaPaglia looking extremely unamused. (Bryan is scheduled to perform at Barclays Center, not Madison Square Garden, on December 18 and 19.) Another TikTok video posted after the event shows LaPaglia booing and flashing a thumbs-down after Bryan’s song “Something in the Orange” played in the arena.
The clip of LaPaglia’s reaction to the interview went viral, prompting many on the internet to wonder why the hell the fighter would shout out Bryan. In a Tuesday interview with Sirius XM’s Fight Nation, Onama told the hosts that his manager had called him saying Bryan was at the event and wanted a shout-out. “To be honest, I didn’t know who Zach Bryan was,” Onama says. “I don’t know who Zach Bryan is. But I said, ‘I’ll give you a shout-out. I’ll give you some love.’”
“So you were doing promo for him,” co-host Alan Jouban said. “You were doing a paid advertisement right there.”
“Yup, that’s exactly what it was,” Onama confirmed, though he specified he had not yet been paid.
LaPaglia hasn’t addressed Onama’s interview and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Her podcast co-host Dave Portnoy, however, addressed Onama’s remarks in a video he posted on X. “This small little four-foot-eight fucking psychopath is that pathetic and that lost where they gotta beg UFC guys for a shout-out just to try to rub it in Bri’s face? Like Brianna gives a fuck,” Portnoy said. (Bryan’s management team did not respond to a request for comment.)
LaPaglia and Bryan dated for more than a year before splitting up last month. LaPaglia has spent the past few weeks going public about the breakup, alleging the 28-year-old singer had been controlling and emotionally abusive.
In one episode of her podcast, LaPaglia recounted Bryan allegedly upbraiding her in front of friends at a birthday party. “He stood up at the fire and just started screaming at my friends, ‘You’re not going to be anything. You’re a fucking loser,’ like just the most horrible shit. ‘You’re never going to make it,’ ‘You live off other people,’” she recounted.
If Onama’s version of events is accurate (his team did not respond to a request for comment), this is obviously an extremely silly, vindictive thing to do. But is it as bad as the hands-down apex of post-breakup pettiness: posting a mock New York Times obituary of your ex-wife’s boyfriend in which you refer to him using a slang term for semen? Only the Devil himself can judge.
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