Brianna LaPaglia Gets Real on the Heartbreaking Effect Zach Bryan Had on Her Confidence

The 25-year-old internet personality opens up on her past relationship while on set with SI Swimsuit.

Brianna LaPaglia was photographed by Katherine Goguen at The Austin Estate. Swimsuit by Tropic of C. Top by Andres Otalora. / Katherine Goguen/Sports Illustrated

There was a time when Brianna LaPaglia’s charisma and energy lit up every room—until a boyfriend told her she was “too much.” The content creator, best known to her millions of fans as Brianna Chickenfry, dated country music star Zach Bryan for a little more than a year. And, in holding onto a relationship that no longer served her, the 25-year-old lost pieces of herself she had spent a lifetime building and loving.

Her extrovert tendencies, vibrant personality, enthusiasm and ability to converse with anyone were all qualities she felt slipping away throughout the relationship.

The couple were first linked in June 2023 and officially split in Oct. 2024, with Bryan announcing the breakup in an Instagram story. A month later, LaPaglia opened up on her BFFs podcast, which she cohosts with Josh Richards, describing the past year as the hardest of her life and sharing how the relationship impacted her sense of self.

At the time, she admitted she was still “scared” of Bryan and afraid of making him “mad.” She reflected on how she nearly lost her identity trying to fit into the version of herself he seemed to want. LaPaglia also claimed Bryan offered her millions to sign a non-disclosure agreement—“blood money”—an offer she firmly rejected.

Looking back, she takes accountability for staying too long in a relationship that wasn’t serving her. “I kept showing up when I shouldn’t have,” she admitted. “If you’re not getting the love that you’re giving, you have to walk away.”

Today, the Massachusetts native makes her SI Swimsuit debut on the cover of the January digital issue. LaPaglia has inspired an entire community of people to recognize their worth and walk away from toxic relationships. Her DMs are flooded with messages from women and men thanking her for sharing her experience, crediting her story with giving them the courage to leave situations they once thought they couldn’t escape.

“The last year of my life, I was made to hate a lot of things that I loved about myself by this guy. [Like] being outspoken, I used to walk into a room and knew exactly who I was, I could talk to anyone. I just had my own energy, I didn’t try to fit in. And throughout that, I would always get looks from him or comments from him, ‘Why are you talking to this person?’ ‘Why are you saying that in front of this person?’ ‘Why are you being so much?’ And I loved being that person and I loved having energy,” she tells the magazine while on set of her photo shoot in La Quinta, Calif., with Katherine Goguen. “And then I started to think, this is awful. I’m annoying, I’m too much, maybe people don’t want to talk to me, but I should just speak when spoken to. So I went from being the one talking to everyone to waiting for someone to talk to me instead of just being myself.”

In trying to love someone else fully, LaPaglia slowly lost the parts of herself that made her feel whole. “That really sucked,” she shares. “Who you are to your core is your energy and how you express yourself. I lost that completely.”

While speaking up about her relationship was terrifying, the Plan Bri Uncut host knows it was worth it—because for every critic, there were (and still to this day are) countless others who feel seen, heard and empowered by her vulnerability.

“This [SI Swimsuit cover is] me reclaiming my body, myself, me just as a woman,” she adds. “I’m allowed to do what I want to do, I’m allowed to do it in any fashion in any amount of clothes in front of whoever I want and no one has the control over you to tell you what you can and cannot do, and for so long, I let someone else have that control so this, to me, isn’t just like, ‘check it off the bucket list, that was really cool.’ This is like reclaiming myself. That’s what this all means to me.”

Check out LaPaglia’s full gallery here, and her cover story here.

Come back to the SI Swimsuit homepage tomorrow to watch our full interview with LaPaglia.