Brianna LaPaglia Has Had A Hell Of A Year

I just spilled an entire pint of beer on Brianna LaPaglia, best known as Brianna Chickenfry. We’re sitting across from each other at Bar Revival, a cocktail bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, with a sopping wet table between us. After apologizing profusely and grabbing a rag from the bartender, I attempt to redirect the conversation back to our interview. “OK, we were talking about dating…” LaPaglia cuts in, laughing, “And you threw your beer at me. I'm soaking wet right now.” Before I can apologize again, she adds, “No, I'm joking. I'm absolutely fine. I wish there was a man that we could have thrown the beer on.”

The 26-year-old is smiley and fresh-faced, dressed for the chilly November weather in a gray cable-knit sweater and black jeans — plus, a baseball cap with a duck stitched on the front. This time last year, LaPaglia was in a very different place. In October 2024, she opened up about her breakup with country musician Zach Bryan and accused him of emotional abuse. “My life personally last October was hell. I was just in a really bad spot mentally, and I was very public about it,” she says. “Compared to last year, I’m so much happier. I’m not in that dark place anymore. There will always be wounds when you go through something traumatic, but time makes it easier. If I could go back to last October, I would tell myself that no matter how stuck you feel, nothing’s permanent.”

Over the last 13 months, LaPaglia has stayed busy. In June, she flew to Morocco to compete on Special Forces: The World’s Toughest Test, Fox’s quasi-military training reality program. The show started airing in September, and to the audience's (and her competitors’) surprise, LaPaglia was one of the standout contestants, along with fellow NYC influencer Gia Giudice. “The more that we proved ourselves, people were like, ‘Oh, sh*t.’ The Olympians realized, ‘They can kind of hang. They're really into this.’”

The finale aired on Nov. 20, and although LaPaglia did not leave the show as a winner, she came very close — and learned a lot through the process. “Although I hated it and I wanted to leave every single day, it gave me a new outlook on life. It sounds corny, but I learned so much about what my body can do, and I just wanted to keep going until I died.”

It sounds corny, but I learned so much about what my body can do, and I just wanted to keep going until I died.

She didn’t give up until she was literally put into a coffin in the finale episode. At that point, LaPaglia tapped out, thinking there were still two days left of challenges. “I was like, ‘I've proven myself. I don't want to be here anymore. I'm not getting buried alive, and I'm f*cking hungry.’” After leaving the show, she went to a back room to tape one last confessional. “I'm in the middle of doing my final interview, and I hear the show end. I left 20 minutes before the entire show wrapped,” she says. “Shawn [Johnson] and Gia both won. If there's anyone on the show that deserved to win, it's them two. I selfishly think I deserved it, too. I wish I stayed. That's on me, I'm such an idiot, but those two really gave it their all.”

The last year hasn’t been all about physically demanding missions. LaPaglia’s taken solo trips to Scotland and Ireland and participated in Barstool’s first-ever reality show Barstool Beach House. In November, she said goodbye to the BFFs podcast, which she co-hosted with Josh Richards. A month earlier, LaPaglia brought back her original show, PlanBri Uncut. “Growth hasn’t been linear, but I’ve been doing so much, which has helped me not stay stuck in that mindset.”

The Boston native has chronicled most of her evolution online, posting updates about her career milestones and personal life to the 2.4 million people who follow her spam TikTok account, @ihatebriannachickenfry. (She hasn’t posted on her original TikTok account, where she has 2 million followers, since October 2023.)

Amid all this growth, LaPaglia still notices some sore spots. Before she got covered in beer, she was opening up about her dating reservations. “Honestly, I've been struggling a lot with dating. When you go through an abusive relationship, you're really scared to jump back into anything. I don't want to ever give someone the power to hurt me again,” she says. “In time, that will change, but right now, I'm just so emotionally unavailable.”

I can’t imagine dating someone that is also emotionally intelligent.

She continues: “It's such a toxic cycle that women go through because you think that you're with great men, then they end up hurting you — they do something traumatic and horrible — and then you don't trust anyone.”

A lot of LaPaglia’s holdups when it comes to dating sound male-specific — it’s something she’s noticed, too. “I've been openly bisexual forever, but now I'm trying to enter the lesbian community, and I don't know how to. Do I need a Batman signal for lesbians?” she jokes.

“People are like, ‘You just need to go to lesbian bars.’ Apparently, there's also a belt loop thing that you're supposed to wear,” LaPaglia says. “A lot of girls are like, ‘Beware. Women have done me so much dirtier than men.’ I’m like, ‘You know what? I'm going to die alone,’ and I want to — it’s on my own accord."

LaPaglia hasn’t seriously dated a woman before, so she isn’t sure what it would look like. “I can’t imagine dating someone that is also emotionally intelligent. With men, you're not on the same playing field,” she says. “As women, even friends, you have deeper relationships.” She’s worried about what it would be like to find and later lose that kind of connection. “To love a woman, the heartbreak could be so much worse, even if it's not ending badly.”

When she does feel ready to enter a new relationship, LaPaglia is hoping to fall for someone who isn’t in the spotlight. “I want to date ‘normies.’ My last relationship really taught me that — even before everything went sour. From the beginning, there were millions of people watching, and it was always under scrutiny,” she says. “It's just the sh*t stain of my life, to be honest, so I would always rather date someone that's not in the public eye.”

Romance is the one part of her life LaPaglia wants to keep out from under the microscope — everything else is fair game. “That's the point, right? To be engaging, whether it's positive or negative, to get people talking,” she says.

Now that PlanBri is back, LaPaglia is excited to address some of that scrutiny head-on. “I missed being understood. There are so many people dedicated to misunderstanding me, taking things out of context, or just looking at headlines,” she says. “With PlanBri, it's a place where I can get all of my thoughts out and explain myself, rather than giving a quick blurb of what’s going on.”

By the time I’m 27, I just want to be sure about f*cking something. Genuinely, is that too much to ask for?

LaPaglia started the podcast — which she calls a “public diary” — in her college dorm in 2019, and eventually, she got Barstool’s attention. The show’s gone through many iterations since its inception — she co-hosted it with Grace O’Malley for about two years before ending the show in October 2024. Now, LaPaglia alone is back to leading the podcast. “It started off solo, and that's kind of what I always wanted it to be, but then my life evolved, and I just loved my friends, so I wanted to make that work,” she says. “But it feels good to be back to where it started. It’s full circle.”

BFFs ending also opens her up to new possibilities. “It’s just giving me more space to reinvent myself and go back to my roots of where I started on social media, where people fell in love with me, rather than doing all these side quests,” she says.

Despite her early exit on Special Forces, she’s down for other competition shows like Traitors, Big Brother, or The Challenge. But a dating reality show like Love Island is a definite no. “No hate. I just physically can't. I can’t be in a bikini all day. I can't twerk. I'm not sexy. That's not my lane,” she says. The thought of more intimate moments being caught on film is also a deterrent. “See, that's my biggest nightmare. I'm celibate now. I can't even imagine having sex on camera.”

For LaPaglia, the future is a little murky, but she’s manifesting some clarity soon. “This thing happens when you’re in your mid-20s: you’re so confused, you want to go down so many avenues, and you don’t know who you are,” she says. “By the time I’m 27, I just want to be sure about f*cking something. Genuinely, is that too much to ask for?”

After sitting together for nearly an hour, I’m used to LaPaglia posing questions back to me — but this is one of the few times I think that she actually expects an answer. “I feel like you might not be giving yourself enough credit — being sure you don’t want something is also being sure about something,” I tell her.

She nods, serious for a moment. “Honestly, you just changed my life with that,” LaPaglia says. “That is so true. I know so many things I don't want.”

Once the check is paid and we leave the bar, LaPaglia knows exactly what she wants next: pizza and a vape from the bodega.