What’s Happening With Brianna Chickenfry and Grace O’Malley?
It’s quite likely that you’ve found yourself in a situation where you’re overhearing your Gen-Z co-workers say things like, “Are you following Brianna Chickenfry and Grace O’Malley’s friendship breakup? It’s, like, really intense.” If you don’t know who those people are, you are officially old. That’s okay. Take a second to stretch your creaky body and then I’ll explain the podcast-TikTok-Barstool Sports drama that’s been gripping the internet.
Who are these girls?
Brianna Chickenfry (née LaPaglia) and Grace O’Malley are childhood best friends who (until recently) co-hosted the podcast Plan Bri Uncut. The Barstool Sports podcast began as a solo endeavor for Brianna while she was still in college, but when she moved to New York, she brought Grace along and eventually made her a co-host. Since then, their friendship and their careers have become entangled, as being best friends turned into their job.
Their relationship began to suffer when Brianna was dating country star Zach Bryan, who she was with until October of this year. Following their breakup, Brianna accused the singer of being emotionally abusive and claimed that she had turned down an offer of $12 million to sign an NDA. For a brief moment, she became a hero on the internet for bravely dissecting the relationship, the way she was treated, and how she lost herself during the year they spent together.
So why have people turned on Brianna?
People began to speculate that Brianna and Grace’s friendship was on the rocks earlier this year, when Brianna was on tour with Bryan and (literally) phoning it in on their podcast. Shortly before Brianna and Zach’s breakup, listeners got especially upset when it seemed to them that Brianna was blaming Grace for being sexually assaulted as a teenager. The episode after that, which came out on October 10, was their last episode. (Brianna would later use the channel to confirm that she was “blindsided” by Bryan’s announcement of their breakup.)
Fast-forward to December and Brianna was still riding a wave of goodwill. As part of Spotify Wrapped, Spotify named the Plan Bri Uncut podcast as one of its “Breakout Creators” of the year. Brianna shared the post to her own Instagram Story, writing, “Working on bringing back some version of Planbri guys.” Grace took this to be an announcement that their version of the podcast was over and shared her own statement.
“For months I’ve been radio silent about the status of Plan Bri and it has killed me to leave you guys hanging. The plan was for Brianna and me to put out a joint statement about the end of the podcast,” Grace wrote. She said that seeing fans tag her in their Spotify Wrapped had made her emotional, but she kept quiet because of the plan to release a joint statement.
“You may have seen Brianna post that she’s ‘working on bringing back some version’ of Plan Bri. To give you guys the much needed info you deserve, all I can say is that that was my first time hearing about this,” she explained. “I don’t think I’ll ever fully get into every aspect of how this came to be, but it should be said that, although this was not a mutual decision, I’m realizing that, in the grand scheme of things, it might actually end up being the right one.”
Following Grace’s statement, Plan Bri listeners and people who follow TikTok drama seemed to be resoundingly on her side. On one Reddit post about the situation, the top comment reads, “Bri shits on Zach for posting their breakup before she’s ready and then does this to Grace lmao what a pos.” (That’s “piece of shit.”)
What does Brianna have to say about all of this?
Well, she got Barstool in the breakup and continues to podcast with CEO Dave Portnoy on a show called BFFs.
On an episode released last week, Brianna shared her side of the story. To her, Grace behaved poorly while she was still dating Bryan, which was the beginning of the end of their friendship. She recalled telling Grace, “I feel like, because you hate Zach so much, you’re forgetting to separate that I’m your best friend.”
“You can hate him and be there for me, but she never was,” Brianna said through tears. As people began to criticize Brianna earlier in the year, she said she asked Grace to stick up for her online, which she said Grace declined to do because it “built her up.” Brianna also claimed that she ended the podcast in October because it had become “a forum to bully” her.
What’s next for Brianna and Grace?
Brianna will most likely stay in the Barstool universe and continue podcasting under that banner. Wait a minute: Two female best friends with a Barstool podcast breaking up in a very public and messy way? That sounds kind of familiar. Did you think we would get all the way through this without Alex Cooper and Call Her Daddy making an appearance?
For her part, Grace has remained quiet since she made her statement on Instagram. However, on December 18, Cooper shared a screenshot of her call history with Grace, showing that they had had a 38-minute conversation. “You can stop tagging me, I know what needs to be done,” Cooper wrote.
The next day, it was announced that Grace would be joining Cooper’s Unwell Network, presumably with her own podcast. I imagine she’ll be recording a tell-all episode of Call Her Daddy ASAP.
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