Kenny Chesney Gets Real About His “Social Anxiety” After Split From Ex-Wife Renée Zellweger

Kenny Chesney / Instagram

Kenny Chesney Opens Up

Kenny Chesney is one of the biggest country stars in the world. Despite this, he keeps many details about his personal life to himself.

Chesney became more guarded following his split from actress Renée Zellweger. The couple wed in May 2005, but the marriage was annulled four months later.

During a recent Q&A session at the Country Radio Seminar, Chesney offered some rare insight into how he felt after his split from Zellweger. Billboard quotes him as saying:

“What is interesting is we were playing stadiums already, and after that…I didn’t have social anxiety before that, [but] then you add our success and then you add [the end of a marriage] to your life and you have a little bit of social anxiety.”

Keeping Personal Things Personal

People went crazy over the annulment news in 2005. Now with social media, Chesney can’t imagine how much worse things would be today:

“Dealing with the way the world is today and how social everything is, and how information is transferred — yeah, you’d have to be crazy to want to be a celebrity today,” he said.

Chesney explained why he chooses to keep his private life to himself these days:

“One of the reasons I’m so private is when my life started to change and people started caring at a different level, the only thing I could keep to myself was the intimate details of my life,” he said. “Everything else is fair game. Can people talk about you? They make stuff up, they run with it, the media runs with it. People are really curious to know those intimate details, I get that. But the reason I’m so private is that if I don’t keep those intimate details to myself, where do I go? What else do I have?”

When it comes down too it, Chesney doesn’t actually enjoy everything that comes with being a celebrity. He turns down offers that are “too celebrity-oriented in nature” and focuses his attention on creating.

Clearly, Chesney’s approach pays off. There’s no denying his popularity!