Renee ZellwegerIts blink-and-you'll-miss-it marriage to a country singer Kenny Chesney It was so short-lived that even the actress herself sometimes forgot it ever happened — but at the time, it was one of the biggest celebrity dramas around. Twenty years later, let's see what really happened to Renee 'n' Kenny…
How did it start?
Zellweger, now 55, and Chesney, now 56, first met — but it was no chance — at NBC's Concert of Hope (a tsunami relief telethon) in January 2005. D Bridget Jones The actress had already planned to give the country star a note after admiring him from afar. Chesney, meanwhile, cited her as his top celebrity crush in a 2002 interview with the tennesseanSaying “Here is a country girl who is still in the world. You'll never see him coming, then — what! – She has and that makes her really, really sexy. She also seems like the kind of girl who could fit in anywhere and be at home.” Her 1999 song, “You Had Me From Hello,” was also rumored to have seen the actress utter a line by 1996. was inspired Jerry Maguire.
Stories, told by entertainment experts and ex people Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Jess Caglesaid that after the telethon, where Chesney was performing and Zellweger was answering the phone, he approached her and said, “I heard you trying to give me a note—don't let the principal know!” And the pair started getting to know each other immediately.
“They've been each other since Halo,” Cagle said at the time. “At that point, they exchanged numbers and emails and started this kind of long-distance relationship that became a real romantic thing.”
The first public hint of a romance between the pair came in April, when Zellweger unexpectedly appeared on stage with Chesney at his show in Jacksonville, Florida, presented him with a margarita and kissed him on the cheek.
How long does it last?
This is the part that has everyone talking.
After less than four months of dating, the couple married in May 2005 in an intimate ceremony at Chesney's private estate in St. John, US Virgin Islands. Zellweger wore a Carolina Herrera gown and was walked down the aisle by her father with 35 close friends and family members.
It all seemed dreamy, but less than four months later, Zellweger filed for an annulment, citing “fraud” as the reason for the split.
How did it end?
When news of the tragic breakup became public, intense speculation about what “cheating” meant, even led to intrusive speculation about Chesney's sexuality (which he later turned on its head).
Zellweger released a statement to clear things up, saying he wanted to “clarify that the word 'fraud' listed in the documentation is just legal language and not a reflection of Kenny's character.” He added: “I would personally be very grateful for your support in refraining from drawing insulting, hurtful, sensational or untrue conclusions and would appreciate your understanding that we hope to experience this transition as personally as possible.”
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What they said about each other
Chesney responded to Zellweger's statement in his own words. “It's an incredibly sad time,” he said. “I hope everyone can respect the privacy that I know Renee already wants.”
But still the gossip continued, forcing the couple to issue yet another statement – this one, together and through their representatives. They said: “The only reason for this annulment was the miscommunication of their intention to marry in the beginning. Renee and Kenny value and respect each other and are saddened that their different motives prevented the success of this marriage.”
Both stars mostly hit it off immediately but in November 2005, two months after the cancellation, Chesney was complimentary of his ex in an interview. View. “He and I fell in love like two school kids,” he said. “I'm glad to know that this can happen, that it exists and that we still care about each other. It would have been a bad thing if I hadn't met him. she is nice I don't want to sit here and go: 'Poor me.' I'm completely blessed, and I'm grateful for that.”
What they say now
Now that more time has passed since the brief, some might say disastrous marriage, both sides have been able to talk more about what really went down.
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“I think people should live their lives the way they want, but I'm pretty confident that I love girls,” Chesney said in 2009. playboy Interview “I have a long line Girls who can testify that I'm not gay. To cancel us, the legal papers could either claim physical abuse, which was not true, or three or four other things that were not true. The best thing we put out there was fraud. So I said, 'Okay, do it. Whatever.”
In a 2010 interview, she gave a few more details — and it sounds like she just wasn't ready for marriage. “I see my life as a box,” he said. “So everything I put — learn to play guitar, put in the box. my made friend I put it in the box, and my career took off. That box grew into this wonderful house… and you protect everything and all the relationships and all the people who helped you build that house. “It was out of the box. (Renee) is 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 it happened.”
in another playboy In interviews, in 2015, Chesney was more reflective about the turn of events and the impact on his life. “Nothing positive has come out of it in my life, I can tell you that,” he said. “I had no idea what a real marriage meant. I was committed to one thing – music – and then I was fully committed to a second thing, marriage. I didn't know how. It was a scary moment for me. I didn't really have any kind of attention from the paparazzi. It went from zero to the complete other end of the spectrum. I would go to a concert and there would be helicopters flying around, trying to take pictures of me and him together. I thought it would always be like this. I'm just completely terrified. I did what I knew how to do: I ran. I pushed him away, in every way possible – to the point where I didn't want to be married to him anymore. It's that simple. I still struggle with it. Was it the right thing to do or not? I still think about him every day. Every day I wonder if he is okay. I mean, you don't just fall in love with somebody.”
Most recently, in A 2023 interview with BillboardChesney spoke about how her experience with Zellweger helped her manage her life more personally. “One of the reasons I'm so private is when my life starts to change and people start caring on a different level, the only thing I can keep to myself is the intimate details of my life,” she said. “What's funny is we were already playing in the stadium, and after that … I didn't have social anxiety before, then you add our success and then you add that to your life and you have some social anxiety. And now, the world today. Dealing with the way and how everything is social, and how information is transferred – yes, you have to be crazy to be a celebrity today.”
Some of country music's biggest songs are about heartbreak — and the relationships that inspired them can be just as dramatic. Shania Twain first found out when her husband of 14 years, Robert “Mutt” Lange, was having an affair with her former personal assistant, Marie-Anne Thiebaud, in May 2008.
Zellweger also talked about the turbulent times in her life and said in a 2016 interview with Advocate The speculation about Chesney's sexuality really upset him. “It saddens me that somehow people are using this as a way to be mean and call someone gay as derogatory, with bad consequences,” he said. “Of course, there is the larger issue of why anyone had to make up a story. I'm an old-fashioned girl who doesn't think it's appropriate to hang your laundry on the lawn. I feel like you devalue yourself as a human being when you share very personal things with a bajillion strangers who are making fun of you. I just don't see that there's any dignity in that.”
Zellweger added that she often forgot the wedding ever took place, saying, “It's a pretty big thing to forget, isn't it?”
Key relationship takeaways
In retrospect, it seems like these two went off on romance and the passion of falling in love after admiring each other from afar – but forgetting to find out if they're actually compatible. Both in their mid-thirties at the time, getting married seemed like the obvious thing to do.
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Two decades later, both are in long-term relationships — just not with each other. Chesney has been dating models and dancers Mary Nolan Since 2012 – and their relationship is extremely private – when Zellweger was with the British TV star and motoring expert Ant Anstead From the year 2021. Interestingly, though, neither party remarried; Did those disastrous few months set them both off for life?