[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Ugh. This one huts to watch.
We all saw Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia’s romance with country crooner Zach Bryan unfold in the public eye like a sweet, Instagram-filtered love story… But what we didn’t see — what we couldn’t see until its demise, TBH — is what she bravely revealed when it all came to an end: the deeply painful truth behind all those smiles.
Of course, the 29-year-old country music star officially confirmed their breakup via IG last October, with a post that felt surprisingly apologetic. “I respect and love her with every ounce of my heart,” he wrote at the time before vaguely acknowledging that he had “failed people that love me.” And ever since, a drone of increasingly unsettling revelations had that post take on a new and darker meaning.
Related: Dave Portnoy Calls Out ‘Psychopath’ Zach Bryan For Dating Girl Identical To Brianna!
Fast-forward to today — last night, in fact — which brought us the most recent brand-new episode of FOX’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. Brianna stars on this season, and in Thursday night’s ep, she stripped down: no glam, no mic, no podcast filters. Just her, the dirt, the fatigue, and the emotional wreckage of a year that nearly broke her.
In a teaser clip for the show published before the episode aired, the 26-year-old was asked why she decided to take the World’s Toughest Test. To that, Chickenfry responded:
“I think I’m here just to not give up. I feel like I kind of gave up on myself last year, just mentally.”
Oof.
That confession alone would’ve been enough to make anyone tear up. But then she went deeper, describing a relationship that sounds nothing short of suffocating… and tragically invisible to those on the outside looking in.
Without calling out Bryan by name, Brianna went into her emotional depths to the point that it left us with little wonder about whom she was referencing:
“I was in a bad relationship, but it was like a public relationship with a famous person. And it was just like … I would leave my house with a smile, but like nobody knew what was happening. I was in a bad spot. I lost sight of myself and I just didn’t want to be here anymore.”
Yikes.
Obviously, we’ve been covering the saga between Brianna and Zach for quite a while now. But to hear her say she was “in a bad spot” while literally everyone in the world thought she was living the dream? Even after a full year or so to digest their unsettling situation? Yeah, heartbreaking still doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Watch the heart-crushing clip here:
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