Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia is used to talking about her love life. Whether she’s sharing her latest first date stories on TikTok or the newly relaunched PlanBri Uncut podcast, LaPaglia is always candid when it comes to dating and relationships — but right now, she’s avoiding both.
After a “traumatic relationship” and breakup with country musician Zach Bryan in October 2024, LaPaglia has been “emotionally unavailable.” She’s also more wary of red flags in the early stages of seeing someone new. “I need to stop falling for love bombing. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I love me too. Why not?’” she tells Elite Daily. “I always fall for it.”
“But in genuine relationships, whether it’s a friendship or something romantic, there has to be a foundation established first. You can’t just love someone after two dates,” the Special Forces contestant says. “Of course, you can want to hook up with them, think they’re awesome, and want to spend more time with them. But [it’s not healthy] for someone to just be all in your grill after meeting twice.”
“I need to realize that that is a red flag and stop feeding into it,” she says.
Some of LaPaglia’s dealbreakers are less psychological. “I think Instagram photo dumps are for the girls,” she adds. “There was this guy that I thought was super cute, nice, funny, 36. We were talking for a little bit, and then he posted a weekend dump with 20 photos — the maximum you can post — and the majority of them were just mirror selfies. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Why do men have to infiltrate everything that women do? Just let the girlies have our photo dumps.”
LaPaglia thinks that one bad experience can reshape the way women view dating. “You automatically see red flags that might not even be there.” For LaPaglia, though, the alternative sounds worse. “If you don’t do that, you end up stuck in something again. It’s a perpetual cycle, and personally, I don’t want to be in it.”
When she does feel ready, she has some criteria for her next partner. “An ideal partner would just be someone that supports me and loves me no matter what — just someone that’s your best friend,” she says. “I want to be with someone where the love is reciprocated in the same way that it’s given, because when I love you, I love you really hard. I just want to be on the same page.”
