Zach Bryan is targeting an old flame from his new album, With the sky above.
The country crooner dropped his sixth studio LP on Friday, January 9, and fans are already speculating if one of the songs, “Skin”, it’s about his ex-girlfriend Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia.
On the track, Bryan conjures up images of tattoo removal and asks, “How do tattoos get on your skin?”
Bryan, 29, and LaPaglia, 26, who split in October 2024 after a year of dating, they previously revealed that they got matching tattoos. LaPaglia has the words “How lucky are we?” tattooed on the upper arm. Bryan later included the line in the lyrics of his 2024 song “28” and got a similar tattoo on his then-girlfriend.
But on “Skin,” Bryan sings, “I’m taking a blade to my old tattoos / I’m draining the blood between you and me / I’m taking a blade to my own skin.”
“And I’ll never touch yours again / Yeah, I’ll never touch yours again,” he later adds emphatically, alluding to a sour relationship.
Later, Bryan sings about his mystery ex badmouthing his friends and apparently it refers to his new sobriety.
“Still talking shit about all your friends? / I’m here to take it all on the chin / This time, sober as a rock,” he sings.
Getty Images (2) Zach Bryan and Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia were together for a little over a year before their relationship took a shocking turn. In October 2024, Bryan released a statement on social media revealing that he and LaPaglia had split. (The couple went public with their relationship in July 2023.) “I respect and love (…)
“This is definitely about fried chicken 😅,” one fan commented on the song YouTube page Another wrote: “Not one for drama but it’s about b. Chicken 🫣😭.”
Bryan and LaPaglia had a bitter split, which the country singer announced in an October 2024 statement.
“Brianna and I 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 long time and for that I will always be grateful,” she wrote via her Instagram story at the time. “I’ve had an incredibly tough year personally and I’ve struggled through some pretty serious things. I thought it would be beneficial for both of us to come out in different ways. I’m not perfect and I never will be.”
LaPaglia later said yes “blind” by division and accused Bryan of being one emotionally abusive to her during a November 2024 episode of her “BFFs” podcast. (Bryan has not publicly addressed LaPaglia’s allegations.)
“The last year of my life has been the hardest year of my life to deal with this kind of abuse,” she said. “Right now I’m still scared because I’m scared of him. My brain is rewired and I’m scared of driving him crazy.”
After their breakup, Bryan moved on Samantha Leonardto whom he marry in Spain at the end of 2025.
Zach Bryan is officially off the market after marrying Samantha Leonard. The country singer ended 2025 saying “I do” to Leonard in an intimate wedding celebration in Spain. “Harder than the rest,” Bryan wrote via Instagram on New Year’s Eve, with a first look at the couple’s wedding day look. According to (…)
“Harder than the rest,” Bryan captioned a photo of the couple in their wedding day outfits posted on Instagram on December 31.
A few months before the nuptials, Bryan paid tribute to Leonard in a Instagram published when he celebrated his 28th birthday.
“From the bullfights to all the bulls***, today is your birthday and I love you, Samantha Marie,” he said. “To the only woman who can walk six miles in Chanel flats, skydive over the Alps and catch a fish bigger than me all in the same day. Hope your day was as stylish as you are. One of the best days of the year to celebrate. For a fugitive these days.”