Hi, everyone. Dramathony Channeltano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. It's time to talk about one of the weirdest and most surprise stories to come out of the music industry over the past week.

This one specifically is rising out of the country field, which if you've been paying attention to country music over the past few years, you know the genre is undergoing quite a commercial and artistic renaissance at the moment. You have tracks like Shaboozey's "Tipsy" bar charting at number one for week after week after week after week. You have some of the biggest artists in the genre doing well. You have some of the biggest artists outside of the genre wanting to like rush in creatively in order to take advantage of this gold rush with the likes of Beyoncé and Post Malone doing country records recently. And you also have artists who are on the more alternative and indie side of the genre doing really well commercially, too. Names like Sturgill Simpson or Tyler Childers or Zach Bryan, who I think you could argue is the biggest from indie country, from alt country to mainstream success story that we've seen in the past few years.

The numbers he's been doing on these very lengthy albums that have been dropped in such quick succession, it's just been really impressive. And even I myself have been a big fan of these records. And millions and millions and millions and millions of other people have as well. It's really turned Zach Bryan into such an overnight star and sensation to where he's the music artist now who has the internet talking about his personal life, who he's dating, that thing, which is not typically the thing that I, personally, as a reviewer and an industry commentator, pay super close attention to.

However, in Zach Bryan's case, it's the thing that's difficult to ignore, considering that he has been in a highly publicized relationship with somebody who has proven to be very successful in the social media space, in the podcast space. That would be Barstool Sports' own Brianna Chickenfry. Apparently, the two of them dated for about a year. Their relationship eventually came to a very unceremonious close. The reason now at this point any of this even matters is that it seems to have led to Zach Bryan completely taking himself off track with his music career because he recently hit social media, specifically Instagram, with the announcement that he is quitting touring.

He put out a few demo-quality songs along with this announcement and had this lengthy series of paragraphs that essentially went into his mental state as of right now. He also claims he's going to be finishing up his Master's degree in France, of all places. And all of this obviously builds a very sympathetic picture for Zach Bryan at the moment. Maybe touring and music is becoming too much. It's taking him away from the things in his personal life that actually matter. All of that's completely understandable.

And if we were talking about this and only this, then there probably wouldn't be much of a reason to make a video. The fact of the matter is this announcement, quitting touring, putting these songs out, and dropping this Instagram post is aligning very perfectly as if he knew all of this was coming. But Brianna Chicken Fry recently went on a Barstool Sports podcast to basically divulge tons and tons and tons of information about her relationship with Bryan, categorizing a lot of his behavior during this time period as quite abusive. She detailed in this podcast interactions and behavior that involved Bryan getting quite aggressive, loud, angry, throwing phones, being mad at her when she would sing Morgan Wallen songs.

"There was always another excuse as to why he was treating me so poorly and why I'm crying myself to sleep every night, why he's screaming at me like, You wake up, it's the apology. I'm going to be better. I need you in my life. I don't expect people to understand emotional abuse if you haven't been through it, and I hope you never have to go through it. I lost 15 pounds I didn't have to lose in the relationship. I didn't sleep. I was completely isolated from my family, from my friends, from work."

Maybe the most damning allegation that she during this podcast is that he offered her millions of dollars to essentially sign an NDA and just keep quiet about the nature of their relationship, really anything that happened in the midst of it. These are damning allegations. These are damning allegations and they're massive allegations from somebody who has just an absolutely gigantic platform, like the volume at which Brianna's words on this have been calling out onto social media into the country sphere. It's been deafening. So loud that you have to imagine, Bryan is fully aware of what's being said, how it paints him, and its potential impact on his music career for years to come. You have to suppose or assume that he's actively the option here to say nothing, to not respond, to just let it lie, I'm just going to either let this blow over or not address it whatsoever. While saying nothing is his choice, and it's not literally an admission of guilt, it's still not a great look. Other people who are in the Barstool Sports orbit have been backing Brianna up. Specifically Dave Portnoy – huge douchebag, but still – he and Josh Richards came out with a full-fledged song, music video, diss track, put it up on YouTube.

"My fist, plus your face, simple edition, the way I did her wrong, man, it's sickening. I'm going to kick your dick in to give you an adult circumcision."

Where you essentially hear repeated a lot of the claims of Zach mistreating Brianna, also cheating, and then on top of that, spreading STDs, allegedly.

"Hey Z. B., why you handing out these STDs? These girls are itchy in their jeans. Ask me what you mean."

They're not even being subtle about those claims and those attacks. The song in the music video goes pretty freaking far in terms of painting Zach Bryan in a very negative light. Of course, Dave's rapping on the track is absolute trash, but I guess that's neither here nor there. And look, as much as any one of you can jump down into the comments and say, 'Hey, look, as of right now, everything that's going on here, it's just allegations, it's just drama, whatever.' Yeah, as much as that may be true on one level, the effects felt from this in terms of Zach Bryan's career are still very real and are still very obvious. As again, I don't think him dipping out from touring and performing was just a coincidence. I don't think it's lining up this way just by accident.

If Zach is really taking off entirely from performing, he's just going to focus on his education now and potentially take such a long break that who's he going to be wondering about a new Zach Bryan album in the next maybe three or four years, potentially five. And given that Zach's music typically has such a personal, sad, intimate appeal to it. I imagine it's going to be difficult taking much of anything he says artistically down the road seriously if he actually does try to manage some comeback. I mean, maybe it's something he would be able to continue doing and skate by commercially if he was the artist who got popular just writing songs about trucks and beers. At that point, the music is so insincere and unserious and distant that it wouldn't really matter who's making it or what the quality of person is that's making it.

No, Zach Bryan has, for years, been sold as a country artist who has a lot of heart, writes songs that actually mean something and have substance. He's a guy with a lot of emotional depth. However, that is not what is being communicated by the move that he's making here. I imagine a lot of what Zach Bryan has been built up to be over the past several years is going to be completely unraveled as these allegations continue to stand unchallenged.

So, yeah, as of right now, it's not looking very good for Zach Bryan or his career. And if any of you guys have been following this, I would be very interested to know what you think about any of it.

Anthony Fantano. Zach Bryan. Forever.