The Untold Truth Of Zach Bryan

Zach Bryan's rise to fame is one of the most remarkable stories in modern-day country music. The troubadour was still serving in the U.S. Navy when he signed a contract with Warner Records in the spring of 2021, by which point he'd also released two albums independently, performed at the Grand Ole Opry, and become a YouTube sensation with his self-penned songs.

Since leaving his military career, Bryan has gone from strength to strength, winning new male artist of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, scoring the biggest first-week country album sales of 2022 with his major label debut "American Heartbreak," and then reaching the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 with the Kacey Musgraves collaboration "I Remember Everything."

Another remarkable thing about Bryan's success is that it's been achieved with hardly any press. Indeed, although the star is often very vocal on X (formerly known as Twitter), he appears to be averse to giving interviews, only occasionally chewing the fat with a major publication or podcast. But while the singer-songwriter prefers to let his music do the talking, certain information has trickled out over the past few years. From motorcycle accidents and run-ins with the law to military beginnings and marriage breakups, here's a look at his untold truth.

In June 2022, just a few weeks after reaching No.5 on the Billboard 200 with the album "American Heartbreak," Zach Bryan suffered a major scare when he was involved in a motorcycle accident with his then-girlfriend Deb Peifer. 

The incident happened on the way back from an idyllic day out when Bryan diverted his eyes from the road for a split second. Although his other half thankfully remained unscathed, the country singer suffered a gash to his right arm, a scraped forehead, and road rash. Speaking to The New York Times about the collision, he said, "I'm like a Kerouac guy. Like, I think life is reckless and it should be insane. It all ends in agony. It's all about the outcome, so like, do it, you know? Do whatever it is."

Bryan admitted that the crash had left him with a newfound awareness of life's dangers, referring to the fact that he now worries about Peifer traveling with him on a 10 mph scooter when he used to reach up to speeds of 130 mph on his motorcycle without a care in the world. The accident also had an impact on his creativity, inspiring his subsequent EP "Summertime Blues."

Zach Bryan spent eight years in the U.S. Navy after enlisting at just 17 years old, serving as an aviation ordnanceman during tours of Bahrain and Djibouti. And from the sound of it, the country singer would still be there if it hadn't been for some military interference.

The "Something in the Orange" hitmaker, who followed in his parents' footsteps, took to Instagram in October 2021 to explain why his Navy career had just come to an end and how much he'd miss it: "It's been all I knew since I was basically a snot-nosed child. It made a man out of me, truly. I ran with some big dogs, saw a few fights, outdrank the best of them, but more importantly, got to serve alongside some of the best men and women I was ever blessed enough to meet."

Bryan went on to explain that the Navy had honorably discharged him so that he could pursue his other passion: country music. He added, "Can't tell if I'm a coward or if I'm chasing a dream but regardless, the best eight years of my life were spent serving the best country in the whole damn world."

The country music world isn't particularly renowned for its progressive beliefs: see Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town." But Zach Bryan admirably put his head above the parapet in 2023 when he spoke up for the trans community. And he was compelled to offer his thoughts thanks to another Nashville favorite with Stone Age attitudes.

Indeed, after Travis Tritt vowed to remove all Bud Light products from his tour riders in the wake of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney's promotional ties with the brand, Bryan hit X to make it clear he had no such issue: "I just think insulting transgender people is completely wrong because we live in a country where we can all just be who we want to be. It's a great day to be alive I thought." In further tweets, the "Dawns" singer explained he has family members who are transitioning and was horrified by how much backlash he'd received as a result of his support.

Tritt later took to the same platform to ask Bryan for a private meeting at a festival they were both due to play in Texas several days later. The latter later revealed on X that their conversation had been both lengthy and amicable: "It was nice to meet an old legend. We disagree on some things and agree on some things and it seems the world did not end. My dad almost cried at his set. Can everyone stop being so weird?"

That Zach Bryan ended up serving in the U.S. Navy for eight years and got so emotional when he was honorably discharged is perhaps unsurprising. Both of his parents had strong military backgrounds, too. Indeed, his father, Dewayne Bryan, who was a master chief, and his mother Annette Bryan were often stationed overseas, which explains why the singer's birthplace isn't what you'd expect for a country music favorite: the Japanese island of Okinawa.

Along with his sister Mackenzie, Zach and his parents moved to Oologah, a small Oklahoma town near Tulsa, when he reached the eighth grade. Sadly, his mom and dad headed for divorce court soon after. And Zach initially didn't take too kindly to the woman the latter married. In fact, he'd briefly stopped speaking to Dewayne in the weeks before he headed for Navy boot camp because of a fight they'd had over his stepmother Anna. Luckily, as revealed in a New York Times profile, all those involved now have a healthy relationship. 

As musical career plans go, serving as an aviation ordnanceman during an eight-year stint in the U.S. Navy doesn't seem like the most obvious path. So it's little surprise to learn that Zach Bryan didn't ever expect to be a chart-topping, award-winning country music superstar. Speaking to "Today's Country Radio With Kelleigh Bannen," Bryan admitted that he only started writing and performing as a breather from his military duties: "I would say that I didn't really even mean to build [my career] up. I just kind of was making music with my buddies in the Navy barracks at one point. And then I released two albums and then everyone resonated with the songs and then everyone went kind of crazy for them."

Bryan also revealed during a lengthy chat on "The Joe Rogan Experience" that he's found being idolized to be a rather surreal experience, although he's also aware that not everyone is a fan: "Like coming back to Oklahoma and being around people, and people coming to get me in diners and being like 'Take a picture with me.' I'm like, 'What is going on, man?' There's like 700 people hating me online and I'm like, 'Bro, I didn't mean to f***in' do this. I'm sorry.' It's crazy."

Zach Bryan had quite the week at the beginning of September 2023. Just a few days after reaching the top of the Billboard 200 with his eponymous fourth album, the country singer was arrested in his Oklahoma home state for obstruction of an investigation.

The drama began when the SUV carrying Bryan's private security was pulled over by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for allegedly speeding. The "Burn, Burn, Burn" singer also voluntarily stopped at the scene in his own pickup truck to see what the fuss was about. According to a police report obtained by ABC News, Trooper Ben Bertram was forced to make an arrest when Bryan reportedly failed to comply with requests to stop "interfering with his police duties."

The former Navy veteran, who was bonded out of the Oklahoma jail he was taken to, later uploaded a five-minute apology video to X for his actions. Bryan said, "I was an idiot today. My decisions did not reflect who I was as a person and I just want to make that clear, and I should have been smarter about it." He also revealed that he'd experienced a similar incident three days earlier when he was briefly placed in handcuffs for arguing about his own alleged speeding offense.

"The all my homies hate Ticketmaster movement is the hill I will die on," Zach Bryan tweeted in November 2022. And he wasn't kidding. The country singer delivered a similar sentiment in the title of his subsequent live album. He's repeatedly called out the ticketing platform on social media. And he's even implored Barack Obama to help his crusade.

Bryan has admitted his hatred for Ticketmaster intensified when a fan pointed out to him that they'd had to spend upward of $300 to see him perform at Wisconsin's Summerfest. Just weeks earlier, the Navy brat had commented on X on the scramble to get Taylor Swift tickets, saying, "Yesterday there were probably enough 14 to 28 aged girls tears cried after seeing ticket prices to run the United States on hydroelectricity for three years."

And in December 2022, Bryan appeared to reach the end of his tether, tweeting, "I have met kids at my shows who have paid upwards of four-hundred bucks to be there and I'm done with it. I've decided to play a limited number of headline shows next year to which I've done all I can to make prices as cheap as possible and to prove to people tickets don't have to cost $450 to see a good and honest show." However, Bryan confused matters slightly in 2023 when he announced his "Quittin' Time" tour would use the platform he claimed to hate, tweeting, "One guy can't change the whole system." 

Zach Bryan achieved his mainstream breakthrough with the 2022 album "American Heartbreak," an appropriate title considering his romantic past and present. Before splitting with his girlfriend of 18 months, Deb Peifer, in the summer of 2023, the country singer also had to deal with the end of a marriage.

Perhaps due to his rather private approach to his personal life, you may be surprised to learn that Bryan was divorced by the time he reached the age of 24. The "Something in the Orange" hitmaker had walked down the aisle with Rose Madden, whom he reportedly met while in the U.S. Navy, in a 2020 ceremony in Colchuck Lake, Washington.

The star didn't exactly make a big song and dance about his nuptials at the time. In fact, it was only during an exchange on X with a fan about merchandise that he casually revealed the happy news to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the honeymoon period didn't last long. Just a year after exchanging their vows, Bryan and Madden went their separate ways.

Zach Bryan may have racked up a remarkable 20 entries on the Hot 100 — including his No. 1 Kacey Musgraves duet "I Remember Everything" — in 2023 alone. But the new country music favorite freely admits that not everything he touches turns to gold. And none more so than in his early days.

During an appearance on "Today's Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen," Bryan revealed that although he believes he has a "God-given gift," it took some time for him to harness it properly. Referring to his efforts as a fledgling singer-songwriter, he remarked, "I'd say that first 100 songs were terrible because I was just trying to figure out how to make poems and things that I've written into work that people could connect with through melodies. The melody thing took a long, long time. I sat in my barracks chamber for like eight years trying to figure out how to write a song."

Bryan's pre-fame material is still available to hear on the World Wide Web, but luckily, the Navy brat is able to see the positive: "I produced a lot of my own stuff that's on SoundCloud that's just terrible. I go back and listen to it, and it's just, it's bad. But I'm so thankful for every bad song because it led to [where] I could write one and it made sense."

Zach Bryan set the cat among the pigeons once again in 2022 when he responded to an X follower's request for him to head back to Nashville, saying, "Don't belong, will never belong thankfully." Of course, this wasn't the first time that the "Hey Driver" singer has voiced his disapproval of the traditional country music setup.

While many of Bryan's fans were left aggrieved when he failed to pick up any nods at the Country Music Association Awards, the singer claimed that he himself wasn't exactly shedding any tears: "Guys, I don't and never will want to be considered at the CMAs," he tweeted in a series of posts. "My pride is fine and I appreciate all the love and support and I say it with every ounce of respect to other country artists. Establishments will always be weird."

The Japan-born star insisted he'd rather see the funny side of the snub rather than be enraged about it while also getting slightly cryptic about the state of the genre: "In five years, all of these strange outdated systems will claim it was right in front of them the entire time."

Following his parents' divorce, a teenage Zach Bryan lived with his dad Dewayne, but he remained close to his mom Annette. In his 2022 New York Times interview, the country singer referred to her as "an Oklahoma sweetheart, homecoming queen cheerleader, like a small-town freaking famous person almost."

This was six years after Annette, who'd struggled with alcohol misuse, sadly died, something he believes made him grow up a lot quicker than he would have otherwise. He said, "I think my mom dying really solidified the darkness in life to me. It opened that thing in you that's like, 'Hey, be a man now.'" The tragedy also inspired the star to pursue a degree in psychology, remarking, "I just wanted to figure out why my mom was the way she was, you know? Like the most beautiful lady of all time and also kind of tortured herself."

However, Zach admits that he finds it hard to open up about his feelings now: "People say I repress. And I'm like, 'No, the person that I want to tell all this stuff to is dead. And you don't deserve me weighing in on my feelings to you.'" As well as naming his first album "DeAnn" in honor of Annette's middle name, he also referenced her in his 2023 single, "Dawns" ("I miss my mother's Southern drawl/And her praying through the walls in the evening"). 

While many of his peers think nothing of charging large amounts of money for the honor of briefly breathing the same air as them, Zach Bryan is a little less transactional when it comes to his fan encounters. Indeed, as his keyboardist J.R. Carroll revealed to The New York Times, the country star avoids charging for meet-and-greets on a matter of principle.

Carroll went on to explain that Bryan's team instead "would just have anybody who wanted to meet him after our show. He would just stand there and talk to these people, and they would tell him the most unbelievably dark and depressing stories for three hours." And it seems as though the "Holy Roller" singer has always been determined to give his fans his utmost.

Speaking to Saving Country Music in his pre-fame years about the reaction to his early material, Bryan said, "I feel a little bad because I'm an empathetic guy, so when people reach out to me, I feel like I have to answer every single person — not in a negative way. I was never meant to be in the spotlight because I feel like every single person deserves an answer and explanation. That's the only part of it that's been difficult, is the grand scale of people trying to communicate with me, but I can't talk to every single person and tell them how much I appreciate them listening."

Zach Bryan's love life took another eventful turn in the summer of 2023 when the singer began dating Brianna Chickenfry, the social media star and podcast host. The couple first met at the Academy of Country Music Awards earlier that same year, a period in which they were both with other parties. But they reportedly didn't start becoming romantically involved until they'd both ended their respective long-term relationships.

The couple first got tongues wagging when Chickenfry appeared onstage at a Bryan show in New York. A month later, the podcaster confirmed on "PlanBri Uncut" that she was now seeing the "Highway Boys" singer: "We're just hanging out, having fun, and that's where I've been, that's what I've been doing, that's what I'm gonna be doing for a little bit. We'll see where it goes, and I'm happy."

But by the time she addressed the subject on another podcast, "BFFs," Chickenfry seemed totally smitten. She explained to co-hosts Josh Richards, Dave Portnoy, and Grace O'Malley, "[Bryan is] like, the nicest, most genuine person I've ever met. He's so normal. We did a f***ing 18-hour car ride together and ... didn't turn the music on once and talked the whole time. That's when I knew, like, oh, this guy's actually awesome ... We got to know each other ... We've been spending a lot of time together."

As you could probably guess from his various run-ins with the law, willingness to take on everyone from Travis Tritt to Ticketmaster, and decision to release a double album consisting of no fewer than 34 tracks, Zach Bryan appears to have a haphazard approach to life. Just ask his father for further proof.

In a 2023 interview with Tulsa World, Dewayne Bryan said, "Zachary's always had this 'jump off a cliff and build his wings on the way down' attitude. Sometimes it's frustrating, but I think he's maintained it through this." The former military man, who inspired his son to join the U.S. Navy, appears to believe that Zach doesn't need to change, adding, "Everything he does is under such scrutiny now. He's still a 27-year-old young man. He still needs to have fun."

Dewayne also admitted that he was finding it difficult to take in the fact that he was now the dad of a world-conquering, chart-topping superstar. "There's just no way to describe what it's like being the parent of this person," he explained. But it's clear that he's immensely proud of Zach's achievements. Indeed, not only does he try to attend as many shows as possible, but Dewayne has also gotten himself involved in his son's Facebook fan group.