Brianna LaPaglia ‘Grateful’ to Zach Bryan Breakup for Turning Her Into a Taylor Swift Fan

Brianna LaPaglia may not have gotten the love story she thought she would with Zach Bryan, but she’s still thankful for their breakup as it led her to Taylor Swift‘s discography.

In a cover story interview with Sports Illustrated published Wednesday (Jan. 15), the 25-year-old influencer — known to many by her nickname, Brianna Chickenfry — opened up about turning to the pop superstar’s music following her messy split from the country musician. “It’s unfortunate that it took this circumstance to get to be a Swiftie, but at the end of the day, I’m very grateful that I have found Taylor,” she told the publication.

“Now I’m not just listening to pop music, I’m listening to the diary of someone who experienced something completely the same as me,” LaPaglia added. “I can listen to it and be like, ‘Wow, how the hell does she have a song for everything?’ And I mean, everything. For what I’m going through now, there’s a song, there’s an era, there’s something for everything in Taylor Swift’s music.”

The podcaster and Bryan broke up in October after over a year of dating. LaPaglia soon opened up about the issues she faced in the relationship, accusing the “I Remember Everything” artist of emotionally abusing her and claiming that she refused his offer of $12 million and a New York apartment to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) following their split.

While speaking to SI, LaPaglia revealed that she’s opened up more emotionally now that she’s single again. “When I walk into a room, I want to talk to everyone,” she reflected to the publication. “When the relationship first started, that became a problem for him; I was talking too much or I was being too much, and maybe the spotlight was not on him enough. That’s how he made me feel: Oh, I need to dim myself down.”

As for Bryan’s history with Swift, the former previously found himself in hot water with Swifties after tweeting, “eagles > chiefs / Kanye > Taylor” and adding, “who’s with me.”

He quickly apologized, writing on X in September, “I was drunkenly comparing two records and it came out wrong. I know there’s a lot of stuff that clouds around Ye and I was speaking purely musically. I love Taylor’s music and pray you guys know I’m human and tweet stupid things often. Hope one day I can explain this to her.”