Brianna LaPaglia’s nickname has been around for longer than you might think.
In fact, the social media starcan trace her “Chickenfry” moniker—which made headlines amid her romance with now-ex Zach Bryan—back to the days of Vine, the beloved yet short-lived, short-form video app that was officially sunset in 2017.
“I made a Vine where I thought my leg looked like a Burger King chicken fry,” she told Joe Vulpis on his Lightweights podcast last year. “And then it went viral, and I’m like, “I’m gonna stick with the chicken fry name.’”
From there, as they say, the rest is history. Because when Brianna attached the nickname to her TikTok username and her hangover videos on the platform began to go viral, she attracted the attention of Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy.
“Barstool DMed me one day,” she remembered. “And I’m from Boston, so Barstool is like Mecca in Boston. It’s like Dave Portnoy’s God where I’m from. So I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh this is so scary.’”