Link copied
During the new episode of Barstool Sports’ BFF's Podcast, Brianna LaPaglia has discussed the alleged emotional abuse she experienced during her relationship with Zach Bryan.
Brianna LaPaglia underlined to her co-hosts, Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards, that she has chosen to speak out for the sake of “anyone else that's been emotionally abused and for people right now being emotionally abused”. Zach Bryan announced the couple's split via Instagram last month, with Brianna beginning the episode by claiming Zach's camp attempted to silence her by offering her a $12 million NDA.
Brianna recalled, “I was approached by his team and I was offered a lot of money, a big lump sum of money and a few options. Basically, I would've gotten the money over the course of three years, I would've had to sign all of my experiences, everything that I am, away to this person. They would've been monitoring everything that I do, and at the end of the three years, I'd receive that big lump sum of money”.
The Boston native went on to share why she rejected it, “It came down to the point of I'm not the people before, and I was someone before you, and you made the women before me believe that they had no other choice than to take money from you, sign their experiences away, sign what they went through away...You get to go skip off and sing your little fucking songs on stage like you're a good dude. You get to treat people around you like shit. Sorry, I'm not them. I don't want your money. I don't want in two years to buy a fucking house and think, ‘Oh, this is the money from the dude that literally fucking destroyed me and broke me for a year’”.
The BFF's trio have been teasing the new podcast episode for the past few days, with Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards even releasing a ‘Zach Bryan diss track’, titled ‘Smallest Man’, in the lead-up to the discussion being aired last night (November 7th). At the time of writing, the song has been removed for the second time.
Brianna LaPaglia made it clear throughout the episode that she was not seeking to foster drama surrounding the split, rather, she wanted to focus the conversation around sharing her story, in an attempt to aid others who find themselves in a similar situation.
“The last year of my life has been the hardest year of my life dealing with the abuse from this dude”, Brianna shared, before touching on why she decided to postpone the BFF's Podcast episode release, despite recording it a week ago, “I'm still scared right now because I'm scared of him. My brain's rewired and I'm scared to make him mad and last week, I didn't want to talk about it 'cause I was scared”.
Brianna LaPaglia expanded, “There was always another excuse as to why he was treating me so poorly and why I'm crying myself to sleep every night. Why he's screaming at me and then you wake up, it's the apology, it's the ‘I'm going to be better’, like, ‘I need you in my life’, but if you've been through this - I don't expect people to understand emotional abuse if you haven't been through it, I hope you never have to go through it - but if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about”.
Brianna LaPaglia delved into examples of what she described as “narcissistic” emotional abuse during her relationship with Zach Bryan, including one instance when he allegedly screamed at her for singing Morgan Wallen's ‘Last Night’ in their house.
Brianna reflected, “One morning, we were out the night before, and one morning I woke up and I was scrolling TikTok, and ‘Last night, we let the liquor talk’ was stuck in my head. And I walk up the stairs in the New York apartment, and I’m singing, I’m about to make breakfast or something like that… he freaked the fuck out. Like, freaked the fuck out. He could not believe...‘You’re singing another man’s song under my roof, in this house, that I own’. It was a fight for, I think, a week”.
Again, Brianna LaPaglia reiterated throughout the show that she was not divulging these details and instances for them to become tabloid fodder. She emphasised that she was sharing these recollections as examples of the emotional abuse she allegedly suffered during her time with Zach Bryan, as a means of highlighting the subtleties and control dynamics that can accompany a toxic, narcissistic relationship.
Elsewhere during the episode, Brianna LaPaglia, Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards discussed how Brianna covered for Zach Bryan during the backlash that ensued when he reportedly cancelled his guest appearance with Noah Kahan at Fenway Park, as well as claiming Zach tried to prevent her from listening to Noah. Brianna shared, “I was not really allowed to listen to Noah Kahan. I listened to him too much”.
Watch the full BFF's Podcast episode below:
