Renee claims 'fraud'
2005-09-17 08:53
Los Angeles - After filing in California court for a rare annulment of her four-month marriage to country music singer Kenny Chesney, actress Renee Zellweger on Friday tried to clarify her legal claim of "fraud" in the relationship.
In a written statement issued to the Hollywood press, Zellweger said that the term in court papers was "simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny's character".
Zellweger, 36, and Chesney, 37, were married on June 9 in the Virgin Islands.
The Oscar winner, star of Cold Mountain, Chicago and the Bridget Jones series, had said as recently as early September that she was "happily married". There has been no word on what motivated the sudden split from the husband she first met in January at a charity show to benefit Asian tsunami victims.
In her statement, Zellweger asked the media to refrain from rumour-mongering and said that she and Chesney "hope to experience this transition as privately as possible".
Under California law, which offers easy divorces, strict rules allow only narrow reasons for annulment of a marriage. The only grounds for annulment are that one of the spouses was under age, already married, of unsound mind, physically incapacitated or had committed "fraud" to obtain marital consent.
E!online, a website covering Hollywood news, quoted celebrity divorce attorney John Mayoue as describing Zellweger's fraud allegation as "very unusual for a high-profile case".
"Fraud is a very high standard," Mayoue said. "For a court to accept this for fraud, it's going to have to be a very egregious situation." - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA