If you cast your mind back to 2005, you miiiight recall Renée Zellweger being married to country singer Kenny Chesney for about five months. Zellweger later filed to have the brief union annulled, citing "fraud" instead of the tried-and-true "irreconcilable differences." That set gossip hounds speculating that Chesney might be gay.
Zellweger has addressed the decade-old controversy in a new interview with The Advocate.
"That made me sad," she admitted of the rumors surrounding her ex's sexuality. "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."
The Bridget Jones's Baby star declined to delve into the truth about the relationship, however.
"Well, I’d said all I needed to say on that subject," she shared. "I’m an old-fashioned gal who doesn’t feel it’s appropriate to hang out your laundry on the lawn. 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. 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?"
In case anyone is interested, Zellweger does admit to once dating "for a minute" a male friend who happened to be gay.
"I knew he was gay — or had been gay," she explained. "But he wasn’t gay that day!"
Hmmm. That's some party trick.
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