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Country star Kenny Chesney, 37, spoke this week with Country Weekly magazine about his recently announced split with Oscar-winning actress Renee Zellweger, 36, (more here and here) after just four months of marriage. Zellweger filed papers asking for an annulment on the grounds of “fraud,” but said late last week that the “fraud” allegations were merely “legal language” and no reflection on Chesney’s “character.”
“I’m all right. I’m good. There have been better times, but I’ll be OK,” he told the magazine, sighs almost audible.
“I hit everything so hard this year, Chesney explained. “I had the biggest tour I’ve ever done, I had a record to finish that was real important to me, and, of course, I had something new in my personal life and I was trying to do that too. It really ended up being too much.”
“I’m tired right now, but by next year, I’ll be excited to get back to it. And it’ll be about the music again, not about the sideshow,” he added with a hint of reproach.
Wasn’t it your sideshow, Kenny?
The New York Post added some background to the story on Sunday. “Chesney — who is worth more than 10 times what Zellweger is and pulled down $60 million last year — had his lawyers draw up a prenup that made it clear ‘each party walks away with what they came into the marriage with. There never was or will be any spousal support’ … The couple’s pals .. knew the marriage was over in August when Zellweger opted to hang out at her houses in Pomfret, Conn., and in East Hampton .. rather than visit her hubby on tour. ‘It is amicable,’ a pal said. ‘We all knew it was a romantic impulse to get married and that it would never work.'”
“Pals” always know better.
Chesney performed Sunday at the 20th anniversary Farm Aid concert in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, Ill. Fans close to the stage held up “We Love You, Kenny” signs, toward which he visibly mouthed “Thank you.” He made no mention of the split with Zellweger.
