Nothing says BFFs like a diss track with full production quality. At least, that’s what Barstool podcast hosts Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards seem to be thinking.
While the rest of the U.S. was waiting on the results of the 2024 presidential election, Richards and Portnoy — who cohost the weekly Barstool pop-culture podcast BFFs alongside Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia — released a diss track titled “Smallest Man,” taking direct aim at country singer Zach Bryan over his breakup with LaPaglia.
“I said trust me, caught your pants on fire/Tinder Bumble Raya, knew you was a liar/You’re a douchebag, you just made a new rival/Pretty soon you gonna need a revival,” the two sing in cop costumes, complete with ridiculous fake mustaches. In the video, which has since been removed from Instagram and Facebook. Portnoy and Richards, dressed like cops for much of the video, rap their accusations in the face of an actor made to look like Bryan, dissing the country singer’s looks, tattoos, and behavior. It also includes real audio from Bryan’s 2023 arrest in Oklahoma and references resurfaced tweets of Bryan’s criticizing Taylor Swift. “Think you’re on some s—t tryna diss Taylor Swift / Did a hundo ‘gram stories apologizing like a bitch,” the two rap.
BFFs has been on a break since last week, when LaPaglia announced they would be skipping at least one recording so she could prioritize her mental health amid her breakup with Bryan. The singer-songwriter is best known for his growing fandom in the country music space. After going viral in 2019 with a grainy video singing his original song “Heading South,” Bryan quickly became a staple in the genre, eventually taking home the Best Country Duo/Group Performance Grammy in 2024 for his duet “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves. (He was recently on the cover of Rolling Stone’s annual Musicians on Musicians issue alongside Bruce Springsteen.)
LaPaglia and Bryan were first seen together at the 2023 American Music Awards and dated for about a year before Bryan announced their breakup on his Instagram story in late October. “Brianna and me have broken up with each other and I respect and love her with every ounce of my heart,” he wrote. “She has loved me unconditionally for a very long time and for that I’ll always thank her. I have had an incredibly hard year personally and struggled through some pretty severe things. I thought it would be beneficial for both of us to go our different ways. I am not perfect and I never will be. With everything I am and to anyone I let down, I am sorry. I try my best in everything. I failed people that love me and mostly myself.”
LaPaglia has maintained that she was surprised by the public announcement. “I had no idea that post was going up,” she said in a short video posted on YouTube, eventually crying. “I’m completely blindsided by that.”
After making several comments about Bryan’s character for breaking up LaPaglia, Portnoy took it a step further. The diss track takes (sometimes) clever aim at Bryan’s past mistakes while managing to reference both his biggest hits and other fellow country stars like Tyler Childers and Noah Kahan. But perhaps the biggest sin of all is that podcast hosts also allege Bryan kicked out Portnoy’s rescue dog, Peaches, from his dressing room at a show.
The music video has since been removed from YouTube and Instagram because of a Warner Music Group copyright claim (Bryan is signed to Warner Music Group and did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment) but the audio is currently streaming on Spotify. Portnoy and Richards also announced that BFFs would return with a new episode on Thursday at 8 p.m., which means fans who want to hear more about the breakup from LaPaglia might finally get their chance.