Zach Bryan's Break-Up with Brianna LaPaglia Has Evolved from Messy to Ugly

Why am I still writing about Zach Bryan and Brianna LaPaglia’s breakup? Because I like Zach Bryan’s music. And why are you still reading about Zach Bryan and Brianna LaPaglia’s breakup? Because, outside of election coverage, these posts are some of the site’s most popular. I’m just feeding the click beast. (And offering some distraction too.)

Unfortunately, what started as a messy, drive-by breakup for all to rubberneck has turned ugly. Quick recap: Zach Bryan, a prolific country musician with songs that sound the way smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey feel, was dating Brianna LaPaglia (a.k.a. Brianna Chickenfry), a popular Barstool Sports podcast personality. She co-hosts with Dave Portnoy, Barstool’s founder and self-styled kingmaker of pizza places. Not kidding.

After about a year together, Bryan and LaPaglia called it quits. Bryan broke the news on Instagram, and LaPaglia responded with a tearful video, lamenting how she gave “every ounce of herself” to Bryan, only “to be discarded.”

“I don’t want to talk about details right now. But I will. Obviously,” she added, in what turned out to be a massive understatement. Since then, heartbreak has morphed into rage, and Portnoy even dropped a diss track about Bryan (quickly taken down for copyright infringement), though he promised more music.

“I will write 10,000 diss tracks,” Portnoy declared. “I’ll die in the booth, come back spitting bars twice as hot. Maybe we do Dave’s version. Oh, Bri might jump in too. We’ll figure it out. Might take 24 hours.”

Portnoy, a 47-year-old man powered by pizza, energy drinks, and podcast wellness products, has inserted himself into the breakup of a 25-year-old. LaPaglia doesn’t seem to mind — in fact, she took to their podcast to share her experience of “emotional abuse” from Bryan.

She recalled an incident in a New Hampshire house where Bryan “stood up at the fire and started screaming at my friends, ‘You’re not going to be anything, you’re a f—king loser,’” throwing out insults like, “‘You’re never going to make it,’ and ‘You live off other people.’”

“Just out of nowhere. I’m like, ‘what the hell?’ But when Zach’s in this zone, there’s no stopping it.”

After this outburst, LaPaglia said he smashed a glass in another room. “It was just awful.”

She also claimed Bryan once offered her $12 million to sign an NDA, which she declined.

“It’s starting to make more sense, that $12 million,” Portnoy chimed in. “I think it’s good you shared that story. People should know.”

LaPaglia hinted there was even more to the story, mentioning another incident where Bryan allegedly smashed her phone against a wall after she played a Morgan Wallen song, which sounds like pretty thin-skinned behavior if true. (Wallen is another popular but problematic country musician). She added she wouldn’t reveal further details to avoid embarrassing herself or leaving a legacy that would be “embarrassing” for her future kids to see, apparently finding nothing embarrassing about a 47-year-old man spitting bars on her behalf.

That said, she previously expressed frustration over the NDAs Bryan had other exes sign, saying they “signed their experiences away, so he gets to skip off and sing his little f—king songs onstage like he’s a good dude.” She added that her story is “for anyone else who’s been emotionally abused, for people without a support system like I had.”

Meanwhile, Bryan dropped a new song yesterday, but it’s unclear if “The World’s a Giant” is about the breakup or if it’s because he releases a new song every other day.

via Page Six