Kenny Chesney was a guest on Oprah on Friday. He touched on his four month marriage to Renee Zellweger in 2005 and said he “panicked” when Zellweger didn’t fit into the life he’d created for himself, which he described as a “box”. He also explained that he wasn’t prepared to give up his identity to be married, which Oprah said she could relate to. Chesney looked really uncomfortable with the whole thing and at one point he started laughing maniacally in a way that seemed like he was compensating for something. (Huffington Post has the video.)

This isn’t the first time Chesney has addressed the issue. He told Anderson Cooper in early 2007 that the reason Zellweger listed “fraud” on their annulment papers was simply for legal purposes and that “The only fraud that was committed was me thinking that… I really understood what it was like to be married.” He later told Playboy that the end of their marriage was “a mutual thing.” (In that same interview, he bragged about sleeping with over a hundred women.) Then, in October, 2008 he told Newsweek that he was “was probably as emotionally and mentally exhausted as I’d ever been” after the breakup.

So it’s not like Chesney has refused to talk about Zellweger until now. Renee has only addressed the relationship briefly, and told Time that it was “devastating” and that breaking up “is a very sad experience for anyone to go through, and it’s not fun when people decide that it’s a lovely thing to capitalize on.” I wonder what she thinks about Chesney’s comments to Oprah:

Country superstar Kenny Chesney was on Oprah Friday, and as only she can do, Oprah got him to talk about his short-lived marriage to Renee Zellweger.

The pair met in January 2005, married in May 2005 and had the marriage annulled that September, citing “fraud.”

After Kenny talked about how busy he is, Oprah asked if the lack of time was what happened to his relationship with Renee.

He said, “that and the fact that I panicked.” Then he started talking about “the box” in which he put everything he values, like his friends and musical success, and how he worked to “protect it… I protected that box.” So, Oprah asked, where was his marriage to Renee?

“Well, it was out.. out of the box!”, he exclaimed with a maniacal laugh. But he did call Renee a “sweet soul.”

Chesney then said he still hoped to be married, but “felt that the idea of marriage made me lose my identity… I just don’t know that I’ve found anybody bigger than that.”

[From Huffington Post]

I’m thinking that a guy sleeps with whichever groupies will have him isn’t the type of person who is about to settle down. Chesney is 42 and he’s not going to open his “box” for a woman to come in and rearrange things. Oprah’s box seems pretty well organized too.

I have to say, I am rather surprised by all the media coverage of the Tony Romo-Jessica Simpson breakup. To me, they were one of the most boring D-List couples in Hollywood. A washed-up pop-turned-country singer airhead and her dingbat jockstrap of a boyfriend. Snooze city! But since the breakup, numerous theories on what ended the relationship have surfaced: Tony was cheating on Jessica because she was needy, a drunk, or too fat. Jessica was cheating on Tony with John Mayer. Tony was having an emotional affair with some other blond bimbo that he met at a Jessica Simpson show. And here’s the latest: Tony dumped Jessica because she was flirting with country singer Kenny “I’m Not Bald, I Swear!” Chesney at a 4th of July barbeque.

Kenny Chesney is blasting a tabloid report that he and Jessica Simpson flirted in front of Tony Romo at a July 4 party just days before the couple’s breakup.

“Tony’s a friend, and I wouldn’t flirt with a buddy’s girlfriend,” Chesney tells PEOPLE. “More importantly, Jessica was just being sweet and there was nothing else to it. It’s not funny. There were no problems. Everybody got along great. After the party, everybody went their own way and nobody thought anything more about it. Period. End of story.”

The party was thrown by Chesney’s friend, Sean Payton, coach of pro football’s New Orleans Saints, Chesney says.

“If a girl and her boyfriend can’t go to someone’s house for a Fourth of July party and talk to the other guests without it turning into a big nightmare … , then I feel really sorry for Jessica and Tony, who’re both really nice people,” Chesney says. “I wonder if I wasn’t famous if anyone would even care. But the fact of the matter is I talked to a bunch of guests, hung out, had a good time.”

Simpson and Romo, the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, split five days later on July 9 – the night before Simpson’s 29th birthday.

[From People]

Well, Kenny, that’s awfully nice of you to set the record straight. And you are right – if you weren’t famous, nobody would care. In fact, I’m finding it awfully hard to care even though you are famous. Seriously- did anyone think these two were going to last? Get back to me when she’s dating someone interesting.

Jessica Simpson is shown no 12/16/08. Kenny Chesney is shown on 5/19/09. Credit: WENN.com

Country singer Kenny Chesney has been the subject of gay rumors for years. It didn’t help when his marriage to Renee Zellweger ended after just a few months, with both parties agreeing on “fraud” as the cause. Chesney, 40, attempted to set the record straight, so to speak, in a new interview with Playboy. He said that he’s slept with over a hundred women, as if his skeevy promiscuity proves that he’s heterosexual. Chesney also talked about his brief marriage to Zellweger, and admitted that he still thinks about her every day and feels bad for pushing her out of his life when he realized it wasn’t going to work:

Kenny Chesney tells Playboy magazine that he’s definitely not gay and has well over 100 women who could attest to that.

“Man, I was over 100 several years ago,” he tells the men’s magazine for its March issue out Friday. “There were years when I had a better summer than A-Rod, buddy. You know? I got on the boards quite often.”

In the Q&A interview, the singer also discusses his 2005 marriage to actress Renee Zellweger, which was annulled after four months.

He said he “didn’t have any clue as to what true marriage meant. I was so used to committing to one thing — music — and then I had to totally commit to a second thing, marriage. I didn’t know how to commit to both of them.”

He also told the magazine that the paparazzi and attention became too intense. “I mean, I panicked, there’s no doubt about it. I just totally panicked,” he said, adding that he did “the only thing I knew to do: I ran. I pushed her away.”

Chesney said he called for an end to the marriage, but she filed the annulment papers. “It was a pretty mutual thing, to be honest with you,” he said.

After the breakup, he was depressed and didn’t leave the house or get out of bed for a week. He said he spoke with Zellweger on the phone briefly about a year ago but admits, “I still think about her every day. Every day I wonder if she’s OK.”

To have the marriage annulled, Chesney said the legal papers could claim either physical abuse, mental abuse or three or four other things that weren’t true.

“The best thing we could put in there was fraud. So I said ‘All right, do it. Whatever,’” he recalled.

[From AP via WSBT]

Chesney explained the large number of women he’d bedded as a kind of feast after a famine. He said he reached triple digits in 2001 and that “My first five years on the road were intense because I was the guy in college who never got laid until I started playing guitar… I’ve got a long line of girls who could testify that I am not gay.”

The hard working country star claimed he’s “pretty confident in the fact that I love girls.” If that’s the case then why does he have to talk numbers? That’s immature to say the least. As Queerty mentions he “doth protest too much.” I also like Shakespeare’s Sister’s take on this “Chesney asserts his heterosexuality via misogyny, because the best way to prove you ‘love girls’ is by treating them like shit.”

In November of last year Chesney brought Miss Tennessee 2005 Amy Colley to the Country Music Awards, and it came out that he’d been seeing her for several months. He was linked in the summer of last year to another pageant winner, Miss West Virginia 2008 Skylene Montgomery, after meeting her at one of his concerts.

How are his girlfriend(s) supposed to feel when they hear that he’s slept with over a hundred women? Maybe he’s not as much of a hound dog now, but they’ve got to wonder if he’s still slutting around with groupies considering how they met him. That’s not something you say when you’re planning on settling down with one woman at some point, but it doesn’t seem like that really interests Chesney. It’s also something that’s got to hurt Renee Zellweger considering that she was married to him in 2005, well after he passed the hundred mark.

Kenny Chesney is shown on Good Morning America on 10/14/08. Credit: WENN

Country singer Kenny Chesney, who quickly courted and wed actress Renee Zellweger only to have the relationship end in an annulment four months later, has kept pretty quiet about the whole affair – until now. Chesney has a new album to plug, and one of the songs on it is about the breakup.

On his latest album Lucky Old Sun, Kenny Chesney writes about the end of his four-month marriage to Renee Zellweger.

He tells Newsweek recovering from the split was “was horrible. It took a while. Years. It’s been since 2005.

“I was probably as emotionally and mentally exhausted as I’d ever been,” he goes on. “And that was due to a lot of things — having the foot on the gas pedal constantly, and my breakup with Renee Zellweger.”

So, he says, “I got in a plane and went down to the Virgin Islands. I was completely by myself.

“I didn’t want to be around anybody,” Chesney continues. “So the next thing you know, it’s me and a pen, and I sat down and wrote a lot of lines of this song, ‘Nowhere to Go, Nowhere to Be.’”

Asked if he was nervous writing about the Zellweger split, he tells Newsweek, “It’s the truth. It’s my life.

“I’ve been in a lot of states of mind in the last three years,” he says. “In that way, it’s a pretty honest record. I’ve let myself be more emotionally vulnerable in some of the lyrics. I think that was good therapy.”

He says he has “no idea” what the actress will think. “I don’t know. It’s unpredictable.”

Chesney tells Newsweek they still talk “every now and then. I don’t want to say this whole record is about her.”

Is he still heartbroken?

“Not at all,” says the singer, who adds that he is dating again. “I already wrote those songs. I’m on to something else.”

[From People]

I think Renee is just not the marrying kind. If you recall, their entire relationship, beginning with their introduction during a telethon to benefit the victims of the tsunami in India, took less than a year. Kenny had admired Renee since seeing her on screen in Jerry Maguire and even wrote a song inspired by that movie called “You Had Me at Hello.” They met in January and were wed by April. The details over what went wrong were never made public, but Renee did cite “Fraud” as her reason for filing. Whatever the reason, it sure seems like it took Kenny a lot longer to get over the relationship than Renee.

Kenny Chesney, former temporary and fraudulent spouse of Renee Zellweger, has been nominated for his sixth straight Entertainer of the Year Award by the Country Music Association. Chesney won the honor three of the previous five years and is odds-on favorite again this year on the momentum of seven total nominations for 2008. He seems pretty stoked about it, so it would appear he thinks more highly of the CMAs than the Academy of Country Music awards, which he derided earlier this year for letting fans vote after he won the ACM Entertainer of the Year. Evidently Mr. Chesney doesn’t think the people who buy his albums are qualified to decide who is the best entertainer.

“NASHVILLE (AP) — Kenny Chesney, the Country Music Association’s reigning entertainer of the year, dominated the CMA Award nominations on Wednesday with seven, including album of the year.

Chesney was also nominated for entertainer of the year again, a category he has won for the past two years. Other nominees for the award included Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, George Strait and Sugarland.

“Mornings like this is where you know the music that means so much to you means something to other people, too,” Chesney said.”

[From Entertainment.MSN.com]

Country music legend George Strait follows in nominations with five, as does duo Sugarland. Sugarland’s single “Stay” is nominated for single of the year and if you haven’t heard it, and have any love in your heart for country music, you must listen to this song. One acoustic guitar, one deeply connected voice, and lyrics from the “other woman’s” point of view and believe it or not, you will sympathize! Classic country cheatin’, but with a twist, and one powerful effect.

Other nominees include Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, The Eagles, Lady Antebellum, Allison Kraus, Miranda Lambert, Martina McBride, Alan Jackson, Jason Aldean, Rodney Atkins, Kellie Pickler, James Otto, Emerson Drive, Brooks & Dunn, Little Big Town, Big & Rich, Montgomery Gentry, Trace Adkins and country music’s golden girl, Carrie Underwood, who was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year, an award she’s won for the last two years. Gloat all you want, Carrie, Jessica’s coming for you next year!

The 42nd Annual Country Music Awards will air November 12th on ABC.

Note by Celebitchy: Please welcome our new writer, Ceilidh. Here’s Kenny Chesney’s official YouTube channel if you’d like to watch some of his videos.

Kenny Chesney is shown performing on The Today Show on 6/13/08. Credit: WENN

Country singer Kenny Chesney had what looked like a pretty serious injury while performing in Columbia, South Carolina on Saturday. His foot got caught in a platform that rose up when he first appeared on stage, causing him to double over in pain as he was trapped there for at least 60 seconds.

E! Online points out that it’s obvious Kenny was singing live, because he stopped immediately once his poor foot got jammed. He went on to perform for over two hours for the 44,000 fans who were there. He limped throughout the night and was seen holding his knee during the show, but did not mention the accident or his pain to the crowd.

When he left the stage after what must have been a grueling performance, a physician was on hand to treat him and his foot was so swollen that his boot had to be cut off.

In a statement issued after the show, Chesney said that the adrenaline kept him going and that he did it for the fans:

“I took one look at those fans, and there was no way I wasn’t going on,” he said in a statement after the concert, which was part of his Poets and Pirates tour.

“Sometimes the energy and the adrenaline pull you through. They had come to rock, and there was no way I was sending them home with anything less than the best of what me and my guys came to do—put it all out there and give them back at least as good as they gave us…”

“Honestly, through the pain, through all of it, Columbia, S.C., totally got me through.”

[From E! Online]

I don’t know whether to admire the guy or consider him foolish for not at least taking a break from the show and getting treatment before going back on. He is certainly dedicated, and that must be part of what helped make him a country superstar in the first place.

Here’s the video. It sounds like Chesney or someone else is yelling for help, but it’s hard to tell.

Kenny Chesney has finally addressed rumors that his four month marriage to Renee Zellweger ended after she woke up from her puckered stupor and realized he plays for the other team. He told Anderson Cooper that he’s not gay, but he never really used the word gay, just said he’s uh, not.

Chesney said that the only reason “fraud” was checked on the annulment was because he didn’t understand that marriage meant he’d actually have to have sex with his wife, and that it certainly didn’t have anything to do with all the pills he was popping. Cooper raised a well groomed eyebrow but didn’t miss a beat.

“It’s not true. Period. Maybe I should have come out and said, ‘No, I’m not (gay),’ but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to it,” the 38-year-old country singer says. “… I didn’t have to prove to anybody that I wasn’t (gay). I didn’t feel like I really did.”

Zellweger and Chesney were married on the Caribbean island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands in May 2005. It was the first marriage for both. Four months later, Zellweger listed “fraud” as the reason she was seeking an annulment.

The Oscar-winning actress later issued a statement saying the term “fraud” was “simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny’s character.”

“We thought the least harmful (stated reason) was fraud because it (is) kind of broad … doesn’t specify,” Chesney says. “And boy … we were wrong.”

“The only fraud that was committed was me thinking that I knew what it was like … that I really understood what it was like to be married, and I really didn’t,” he says.

I haven’t actually seen the video clips available on the CBS website because they won’t play for me in any of my web browsers. So I’m making all that filler up, of course.

Chesney must need the publicity for his upcoming summer tour. He also appeared in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition alongside Marisa Miller.

Here’s what he says on his official website about his photoshoot with Miller:

And just when it seems life can’t get any better, here comes Sports Illustrated infamous Swim Suit issue, and rather than buying it, you’re in it. Hard to believe a kid from Luttrell, Tennessee who started picking guitar in sundry bars in college could get so lucky – and yet, there he is: Kenny Chesney, paired with leggy blond beauty Marisa Miller for a free-for-all in front of a white scrim.

“I could tell doing this shoot, we had very similar lives,” Chesney said of what appears on the page to be instant chemistry. “We’re both very normal people, but then the lights come on, she becomes this other person. People who seem me onstage know what that means…”

So when he says he’s another person when the lights are on, that must also apply to when they’re off.

Chesney’s interview will air this Sunday on 60 Minutes at 7 p.m. EST and PT.

Pictures of Kenny Chesney and Marisa Miller from SportsIllustrated.com.