Renée Zellweger is back in the Hollywood spotlight after a nearly six-year absence from acting.
And recently, the Bridget Jones’s Baby star addressed a blast from the past when she discussed the former tabloid rumors that ex-husband Kenny Chesney was gay after she cited “fraud” as the reason for annulling their brief marriage in 2005.
“That made me sad. 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,” Zellweger, 47, told Advocate. “Of course, there’s the bigger-picture problem of why anyone had to make up a story at all.”
The actress and the country singer wed in the U. S. Virgin Islands in May 2005. Four months later, Zellweger filed annulment papers, citing fraud. In astatement, she later explained that her use of the word “fraud” was “simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny’s character.”
On why she clarified her reason for separating from Chesney, Zellweger shared that she was doing the right thing.
“I’d said all I needed to say on that subject. I’m an old-fashioned gal who doesn’t feel it’s appropriate to hang out your laundry on the lawn,” she said.
“I feel 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. But sometimes it is difficult to just let something be what it is, especially when it’s unnecessary ugliness.”
Adding, “Once you’ve said your piece, shouldn’t that be enough? And why is the ugliness that’s perpetuated in the media so attractive to people?”
Two years after their marriage was annulled, Chesney opened up about the gay rumors in an interview saying, “We thought the least harmful (stated reason) was fraud because it (is) kind of broad … doesn’t specify. And boy … we were wrong.”
