Dave Portnoy and Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia’s friendship has come a long way over the years.
Portnoy, 47, founded Barstool Sports in 2003, but LaPaglia, 25, didn’t join the team until much later. She got her start with the podcast network in 2020 as an intern. The organization contacted her via social media after her videos started to go viral.
“Barstool DM’d me one day and I’m from Boston, so Barstool is like Mecca in Boston. It’s like Dave Portnoy is God where I’m from,” she recalled in a July 2023 TikTok video. “They DM’d me to come into New York and I went into the office. I got drunk before, ‘cause I was so nervous. And they gave me an internship while I was at school.”
After scoring her first gig, LaPaglia knew she wanted to continue making content online, so she dropped out of college. LaPaglia joined the staff and was offered her own show which became “PlanBri Uncut.”
As LaPaglia found success at Barstool, she formed a friendship with her boss. LaPaglia and Portnoy later began podcasting together for their “BFFs” show that they do alongside TikTok star Josh Richards. The trio discuss all things pop culture every week.
When LaPaglia first began dating country singer Zach Bryan in 2023, Portnoy poked fun at his coworker for receiving a lot of “hate” for getting into a public romance.
“Well you deserve it for that crap,” Portnoy quipped on an August 2023 episode of the “BFFs” podcast. “People get hate for public relationships.”
LaPaglia confessed that she knew that word of her new romance would get backlash, and Portnoy walked back his dig.
“I shouldn’t say you deserve it,” he said. “It’s very predictable, that’s a better way to phrase it.”
LaPaglia and Bryan, 28, continued to date for a little over a year. In October, Bryan announced that he and LaPaglia had called it quits.
“Brianna and me have broken up with each other and I respect and love her with every ounce of my heart,” the singer wrote in a statement on Tuesday, October 22. “She has loved me unconditionally for a very long time and for that, I’ll always thank her.”
That same day, LaPaglia later shared that she felt “blindsided” by Bryan following the split.
“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. I love you guys so much,” she wrote via her Instagram Story. “Thank you for all of your kind words. Remember you are so loved and everything’s always gonna be okay.”
Portnoy, for his part, showed off that he had LaPaglia’s back by weighing in with a Taylor Swift song.
“Dedicating this to @BChickenfry,” he wrote via X on Tuesday with Swift’s hit song “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”
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