by Matilda Hawkins ‘27

Zach Bryan and Brianna “Chickenfy” LaPaglia at the Grammys

Ask any teenager in 2024 about a certain celebrity relationship scandal, and most of the time they will be able to give you in-depth details of the hot gossip. Celebrities’ personal lives are publicized constantly, and this leads to having no privacy whatsoever. The most recent exposure of a celebrity’s relationship issues is Zach Bryan, who is best known as a famous country star.

Bryan recently went through a public breakup with Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia. The ex-couple first started officially dating over a year ago, and in late October the country star announced their breakup on his Instagram story. The story did not indicate any hard feelings and that it was a mutual decision, but Brianna Chickenfry took it to another level. She claimed on a BFFs Podcast episode that the country singer had emotionally abused her throughout their relationship. She also expressed that he had offered her a 12 million dollar NDA and a New York apartment to not talk about their relationship, which she did not take.

Although the public airing of this situation may seem at first glance to be bad publicity for Bryan, it likely has benefited him. It led to him having a larger social media presence due to its trending, and in modern times, this can help grow a celebrity and their brand, resulting in a financial windfall. In a world where social media and the internet are such a big factor in social aspects and many work environments, does it matter whether relationship publicity is bad or good if it results in more attention for the person?
Take the Zach Bryan drama: although the situation painted him in a bad light and may have caused harm to his image, it also gained him more attraction through more people hearing about the situation leading to them knowing of him. Publicity is one of the main ways that celebrities can gain more attention, which allows them to gain more profit. So looking at it from an economic view, whether it’s bad or good media, the attention given to the celebrity can lead to more money.

The impact on a celebrity’s image and reputation is a little trickier. Suppose the celebrity can be exposed for being a bad person or just generally doing bad things, like Zach Bryan. It is speculated that Zach Bryan canceled his tour and got off Twitter and Instagram because of the backlash he received from the scandal. This shows that through these scandals celebrity’s reputation can be tarnished, and this can lead to the celebrity disappearing to attempt to cover up the issue. This can then lead to previous fans disengaging from their content, and in some cases lead to the celebrity getting “canceled.” Cancel culture is a significant issue that occurs through social media, and often if a celebrity is exposed for abusing their spouse, or other relationship-related scandals, this can then lead to the celebrity being canceled. This would mean that fans stop supporting the celebrity and their work, almost like an online boycott. Zach Bryan is not the only example of a celebrity relationship scandal being aired out to the public. All of these incidents, whether they involved cheating or full-on lawsuits, had a significant outcome on not only each celebrity’s public image, but also the amount of attraction that was dragged towards them and their careers.