Zach Bryan is taking aim at an old flame on his new album, With Heaven on Top.
The country crooner dropped his sixth studio LP on Friday, January 9, and fans are already speculating whether one of the tracks, “Skin,” is about his ex-girlfriend Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia.
On the track, Bryan conjures up imagery of removing a tattoo, asking, “How do tattoos take to your skin?”
Bryan, 29, and LaPaglia, 26, who split in October 2024 after one year of dating, previously revealed that they had gotten matching tattoos. LaPaglia has the words “How lucky are we?” tattooed on her upper arm. Bryan later included the line in the lyrics to his 2024 song “28” and got a similar tattoo to his then-girlfriend.
But on “Skin,” Bryan sings, “I’m taking a blade to my old tattoos / I’m draining the blood between me and you / I’m taking a blade to my own skin.”
“And I ain’t never touching yours again / Yeah, I ain’t never touching yours again,” he then emphatically adds, alluding to a relationship gone sour.
Later, Bryan sings about his mystery ex speaking poorly about her friends and seemingly references his newfound sobriety.
“Do you still talk s*** on all your friends? / I’m here to take it all to the chin / This time stone-cold sober,” he sings.
“This is def about chicken fry 😅,” one fan commented on the song’s YouTube page. Another wrote, “Not one for drama but is this about b. Chicken 🫣😭.”
Bryan and LaPaglia had an acrimonious split, which the country singer announced in an October 2024 statement.
“Brianna and me 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 very long time and for that I’ll always thank her,” he wrote via his Instagram Story at the time. “I’ve had an incredibly hard year personally and struggled through some pretty severe things. I thought it would be beneficial for both of us to go out different ways. I am not perfect and never will be.”
LaPaglia later said she was “blindsided” by the split and accused Bryan of being 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 dealing with the abuse from this dude,” she claimed. “I’m still scared right now because I’m scared of him. My brain’s rewired and I’m scared to make him mad.”
Following their split, Bryan moved on with Samantha Leonard, whom he wed in Spain at the end of 2025.
“Tougher than the rest,” Bryan captioned a photo of the couple in their wedding day outfits posted to Instagram on December 31.
Just months before the nuptials, Bryan paid tribute to Leonard in an Instagram post as she celebrated turning 28.
“From bull runs to all the bulls***, today is your birthday and I love you, Samantha Marie,” he gushed. “To the only woman who can hike six miles in Chanel flats, skydive over the alps and catch a bigger fish than me all in the same day. Hope your day was as graceful as you are. About one of the best days’a the year celebrating you. To a runaway one’a these days.”
