Renée Zellweger has spent nearly three decades in Hollywood, garnering attention both on-screen
and off.
From her rumored engagement to comedian Jim Carrey to her seven-year relationship with
musician Doyle Bramhall, much of Zellweger's private life has been subject to public scrutiny.
However, in the midst of her numerous high-profile relationships, many might've forgotten that,
for four months in 2005, Zellweger was married to country music star Kenny Chesney.
According to an unnamed source, the now two-time Academy Award-winning actress and Chesney
met in January 2005 at NBC's "Concert of Hope" tsunami aid telethon.
Zellweger's friends said the Oscar-winning actress had hoped to meet Chesney and planned
to "pass him a note" during the event.
Before she could, however, the actor and singer's publicists began talking about Zellweger's
intentions.
Her friend explained,
"When the broadcast wrapped, [Chesney] went over [to Zellweger] and said, 'I hear you
are trying to pass me a note - don't let the principal find out.'"
Less than four months after their initial meeting, Zellweger and Chesney wed in an intimate
ceremony in the Virgin Islands.
But what made their relationship go south so soon after returning to the north?
After only four months of marriage, the Jerry Maguire actress filed to annul her marriage
to Chesney, citing "fraud" as the reason for dissolving their brief union.
Once the press got hold of this news, said accusations of fraud ignited rumors that the
singer might be gay.
In response to this intense scrutiny, Zellweger released a statement to clarify her reasons,
which read, in part,
"The term 'fraud' as listed in the documentation is simply legal language and not a reflection
of Kenny's character.
I would personally be very grateful for your support in refraining from drawing derogatory,
hurtful, sensationalized or untrue conclusions and greatly appreciate your understanding
that we hope to experience this transition as privately as possible."
Zellweger and Chesney later released an additional joint statement, which read, in part,
"The miscommunication of the objective of their marriage at the start is the only reason
for this annulment.
Renée and Kenny value and respect each other and are saddened that their different objectives
prevent the success of this marriage."
Obviously frustrated by the media's reports about the annulment, Chesney spoke to Playboy
in 2009.
"That is the most unbelievable thing in the world [...] What guy who loves girls wouldn't
be angry about that s---?
I didn't sign up for that.
I think people need to live their lives the way they want to, but I'm pretty confident
in the fact that I love girls.
I've got a long line of girls who could testify that I am not gay."
He went on to explain,
"In order for us to get an annulment, the legal papers could claim either physical abuse,
which wasn't true, or three or four other things that also weren't true.
The best thing we could put in there was fraud.
So I said, 'All right, do it.
Whatever.'"
"The only fraud that was committed was me thinking that I knew what it was like, that
I really understood what it meant to be married and I really didn't."
In 2010, Chesney told Oprah Winfrey that, ultimately, he panicked, saying,
"I look at my life as a box.
So everything that I put in - learn how to play guitar, put that in the box.
The friends I made.
I put that in the box, and my career grew.
That box I built grew into this wonderful house [...] and you protect everything and
all the relationships and all the people that helped you build that house."
But, when it came to his marriage, Chesney admitted, quote, "it was out of the box."
He told Winfrey,
"[Renée's] a sweet soul, no doubt about it, but I just wasn't ready [...] This is the
first time I've actually talked about it, but that's what happened."
In the years since their annulment, Zellweger has continued to defend Chesney whenever the
subject comes up.
During an interview in 2016, while doing press for Bridget Jones's Baby, a reporter for the
Advocate broached the topic, to which Zellweger replied,
"It made me sad that somehow people were using that as a way to be cruel and calling someone
gay as a pejorative, which has fateful consequences.
Of course, there's the bigger-picture problem of why anyone had to make up a story at all."
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