Saturday, 6 January 2007

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Renée Zellweger talks about her marriage breakup

Miss Potter star admits she was devastated

René Zellweger says making her new movie, Miss Potter, helped her get through the end of her marriage to Kenny Chesney, an experience she calls "devastating."

"It was important for me to make this film – going to work and being with my friends, getting through the days," the actress, 37, tells Life magazine in its new issue.

Zellweger and Chesney, 38, wed in May 2005 after a whirlwind courtship; Zellweger filed for an annulment four months later. The couple later released a joint statement, saying, "The miscommunication of the objective of their marriage at the start is the only reason for this annulment."

Asked by Life what was the hardest thing she'd gone through in recent times, she says, "Well, I'm sure that if you buy groceries, you might have read something about it. It's not on the top of my favorite things that have ever happened."

Her eyes welling up, she continues, "I'm not a superficial person. I don't care about what's on the grocery-store shelves. That's just salt in the wound. But it's not a television show. I lived it. (A breakup) 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. But you're oblivious to that because you are living the reality of the experience – which is devastating."

She won't comment, though, on whether she and Chesney remain friends. "I'll tell you that I was saddened," she says. "I'll tell you that it took ... it's, it's not something I could (reason) away. It's something that I'll live through, but I don't want to talk about it beyond that because it matters to me."

Although she plays the author of beloved children's books in Miss Potter, Zellweger says she's not in a rush to have kids of her own. "I don't think about it," she says. "I don't have a list of things I need in order to be happy."

Similarly, she hadn't always dreamed of getting married: "It was more about it being the right thing to do." Would she do it again? "If the circumstances are right, then sure."