Zach Bryan has confirmed he and Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia have broken up.
“Addressing something: Brianna and me have broken up with (each other) and I respect and love her with every ounce of my heart. She has loved me unconditionally for a very long time and for that I’ll always thank her,” Bryan, 28, wrote in a post to his Instagram Stories.
“I have had an incredibly hard year personally and struggled through some pretty severe things. I thought it would be beneficial for both of us to go our different ways,” he continued. “I am not perfect and never will be. Please respect Brianna’s privacy and space in this and if you have it in your heart, mine too.”
Bryan concluded his message by apologizing “to anyone I let down.”
“I am sorry. I try my best in everything. I failed people that love me and mostly myself.”
The country superstar and the Barstool Sports personality who hosts the PlanBri Uncut podcast went public with their relationship in July 2023 when she announced they were “hanging out.”
“It’s fun, it’s casual and yeah, I just wanted to address it because the whole internet is freaking the f*** out and people are doing s***,” LaPaglia, 25, said at the time.
A month later, LaPaglia referred to herself as Bryan’s girlfriend.
In her own post, LaPaglia took to Instagram Stories to say she was feeling “blindsided” after Bryan’s breakup message.
“Gonna hop off social media for a while and attempt to heal privately, when I’m ready I’ll be back and ready to talk,” she wrote. “I love you guys so much thank you for all of your kind words. Remember you are so loved and everything’s always gonna be okay.”
LaPaglia also addressed the split in a tearful YouTube video.
“I just woke up to Zach posting on his Instagram that we broke up, and I had no idea that post was going up,” she said. “He didn’t text me, he didn’t call me … How can you give someone everything and love them so unconditionally through stuff that you shouldn’t … and then be discarded of in a few days? It’s really, really heartbreaking.”
After they started dating, LaPaglia said she was enjoying the Internet “hate” over their relationship.
“It’s fun. I’m, like, eating it up,” she told PEOPLE at the 2023 Streamy Awards. “But now, I realize you can’t buy into love — or hate — on the internet. You just kinda gotta be yourself and see where it takes ya.”
This past July, LaPaglia shared a carousel of photos with Bryan to mark their anniversary, writing that it had been “a year full of loving harder than I thought I was capable of and laughing louder than any year before.”
“You’ve made me appreciate all the things that were always right in front of me. You brought me back home to my family and you’ve helped me love myself again,” she captioned the post. “There isn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for ya. My person forever. I love you my Zachary.”
LaPaglia’s most recent social media post with Bryan came earlier this month, in which she shared a snap of them both standing together. She wrote, “How are you gonna live a life you look forward to looking back on?”
But breakup rumours swirled around the couple earlier this week after LaPaglia shared a handwritten note to her Instagram about moving on.
“And eventually you’ll find that life goes on, even if you don’t want it to. The days will pass and the world will move while you ask it to stop. You’ll believe life is cruel for continuing on while your feet are stuck,” her note began.
“You’ll find people and moments to blame for your concrete feet. Then there will come a morning when you wake and realize things go on, life isn’t cruel. Your feet are. The world keeps on spinning in hopes of showing you that you can as well,” the message continued.
Bryan’s Instagram page is mostly devoted to his music, but back in a February post he said he was looking forward to celebrating 80 more Valentine’s Days with her.
“You are tough when people are rude, you are honest when it is hard, you are kind when it’s easy not to be, you are funny in a world full of cry babies, you are beautiful with no help, you are patient when I’m an idiot, you’re empathetic when you shouldn’t be,” the Pink Skies singer wrote.
He also tagged LaPaglia in a photo taken earlier this month in Los Angeles.
“We’ll lose loved ones and never let them die, we’ll grow up and keep them alive, it will take undeniable steam, our timing will be off sometimes, you’ll chase the unknown and give it too much,” he captioned the image.