Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia accused singer-songwriter Zach Bryan of emotional abuse and alleged that he made prior partners sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to prevent them from publicly speaking about their experiences with him.
LaPaglia made the claims on the BFFs Podcast she cohosts with fellow Barstool hosts Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards on Thursday.
“The last year of my life has been the hardest year of my life dealing with the abuse from this dude,” LaPaglia said during the recent episode, referring to Bryan. “My brain’s rewired and I’m scared to make him mad and last week, she added. “I didn’t want to talk about it ’cause I was scared.”
The news arrives amid a social media frenzy surrounding LaPaglia’s public breakup with Bryan. On Wednesday, Richards and Portnoy released a diss track titled “Smallest Man,” aimed at the country singer. The song included real audio from Bryan’s 2023 arrest in Oklahoma and referenced resurfaced tweets of Bryan’s criticizing pop star Taylor Swift.
“You made the women before me believe that they had no other choice but to take money from you,” LaPaglia further claimed. “[They] signed their experiences and what they went through away [so] you get to go skip off and sing you little fucking songs on stage like you’re a good dude.”
A representative for Bryan did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
LaPaglia said that her decision to speak out was “for anyone else that’s been emotionally abused and for people right now being emotionally abused.”
“It’s for anyone that don’t have a support system that I luckily had going through this,” the podcaster continued. “This isn’t like a drama thing for me, this isn’t me not signing the NDA or not taking the money because I wanna get on here and expose who he is and all that shit. 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.”
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LaPaglia return to the podcast follows her statement last week, saying BFFs would be taking a week-break. “Hey Guys! We tried to record this week but I am having a very hard time figuring out how I want to handle this publicly due to all the backlash,” LaPaglia wrote at the time. “I am going to put my mental health first this week.”
Her statement was released after Bryan announced their breakup on his Instagram story last month. On YouTube, LaPaglia said she was caught of guard by the public announcement. “I had no idea that post was going up,” she said in a short video. “I’m completely blindsided by that.”
