Entertainment
The true, authentic Kenny Chesney
Just as the sun was going down in the heart of old Key West, Florida, a self-described pirate rode his rust-ravaged bike to the Blue Heaven restaurant to meet a friend – a friend we just happened to be in the middle of interviewing. “She said come in!” David Wegman laughed, as he joined Kenny Chesney.
But that’s the thing about Chesney – down here, he’s not really a country music superstar. He’s just another laid-back local. “We know a lot of the same people,” Chesney laughed.
He collects characters like seashells – he met Wegman at Ivan’s Stress-Free Bar down in the British Virgin Islands. “Above the bar was written in shells: ‘No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem,'” Wegman recalled.
That 2002 song, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems,” helped make Chesney one of the biggest touring acts around. Almost every summer he turns stadiums into beach parties. Among his many accolades: the Academy of Country Music’s Entertainer of the Year Award, which he won four years in a row. And just last week, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame – a career-topping accomplishment that he credits to taking that tropical turn in his career.
“You know what’s crazy?” he said. “I had an 18-song Greatest Hits album, and nobody knew who I was. They knew the songs, but I wasn’t comfortable in my skin yet. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be as an artist yet. I would go do shows and they would go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the guy that sings that song.’ And then, ‘That’s the guy that sings that song.’ When I started being my true, authentic self, that’s when everything changed.”
He could have taken us to some Tiki bar down in the Keys to keep up his tropical brand. But instead, he wanted to show us the room where Ernest Hemingway worked on “To Have and Have Not” and “Green Hills of Africa.”
I said, “The space, it’s almost like sacred place.”
“Yeah, do you feel it? I feel it,” Chesney said. “I spent so much, almost two weeks straight on the bow of my boat in the Virgin Islands reading those books.”
Which might explain why he came down here to work on his first book, out next month: “Heart Life Music.” “This book forced me to pause,” he said.
William Morrow
For all of his love of the islands, he writes it was his own mom who first realized that he may have drifted too far from his East Tennessee roots. “She wanted her 12-year-old boy back in ways, and he was gone. Gone gone gone,” he said.
“She had a hard time finding you, kind of had a hard time reaching you?” I asked.
“It hit me a little bit, but I was so already so addicted to seeking an adventure and all of it, and all these new things happening in my life that I dismissed it.”
He kept going, kept touring, kept writing, until a concert in Indianapolis back in 2009, which he describes as hitting a wall, and crying on stage. “In that moment I was so exhausted and numb to all of it, that it wasn’t making me happy,” he said. “I wasn’t creating the same way. I wasn’t connecting to the audience. It just hit me. It took sports to get me out of that funk.”
He grew up playing baseball and football – loving every inning, every down. So, when a song called “The Boys of Fall” crossed his path, he didn’t only record it; he began interviewing coaches and players about sports and life, and turned it into a documentary for ESPN, “Boys of Fall.” “I needed Joe Namath, I needed Bill Parcells,” he said. “I sat in Bobby Bowden’s living room and he talked to me like a deacon in a Baptist church! I woke up one day, and I went, I’m back.”
Now he’s the one doing pre-game pep talks backstage, like at Sphere in Las Vegas. Many on his team have been with him for decades. There’s confidence in familiarity. “If I had to sit on the bus and think about what I’m getting ready to go do, it would – yeah, I don’t do well with that,” he said.
He put on the kind of show his fans expect – a kaleidoscope of sand, sunsets and songs.
CBS News
When me met him the next morning, he was still buzzing about performing in Sphere. “The first couple of nights, I caught myself singing a song and I was like, Well, this is so cool! And then, I forgot the words to a song that I actually wrote!”
On stage with him this night was Grace Potter, the singer-songwriter he recruited for a duet, even though country really wasn’t her thing. The two are now lifelong friends.
“There’s people who have always seen him as just the iconic, you know, Statue of David of country music,” she said.
“I’m gonna go to Florence and stand beside it!” he laughed.
“But there’s just so much more underneath it that’s more interesting than the sculpture itself,” Potter added.
Indeed, the off-stage Kenny Chesney is a more complicated guy, a more thoughtful guy, even a little shy if you can believe it. That’s the East Tennessee part that will always remain even as he’s chasing sunsets.
Chesney said, “It takes a certain amount of ego to be up there on stage and to do what I do, right? But I try really hard to leave that person up there. I can’t live that person every day. And I don’t want that person in my life every day, but I’m really glad to meet him when I go back up there.”
READ AN EXCERPT: “Heart Life Music” by Kenny Chesney with Holly Gleason
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Extended interview – Kenny Chesney (Video)
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Story produced by Aria Shavelson. Editor: Remington Korper.
See also:
Kenny Chesney spreads the love to Boston bombing victims (“Sunday Morning”)
Entertainment
Taylor Swift reveals Travis Kelce is ‘right fit’ in new docuseries
Travis Kelce has become a steady presence in Taylor Swift’s life, and the pop star says their shared careers have made all the difference.
In a new episode of her Disney+ docuseries The End of an Era, Swift, 36, opened up about how touring once made relationships difficult. “Relationships on tour has always been something I’ve really struggled with because it’s always felt like the tour was taking away from the relationship,” she said.
“Somehow, I was not able to do both and feel like I was nurturing both at the same time, even though I would try and try and try and try.”
That changed when she began dating the Kansas City Chiefs tight end. Swift explained there was a “dynamic shift” because both she and Kelce perform in stadiums for a living.
“We both have jobs where we go out in NFL stadiums, and we entertain people for three and a half hours,” she said. “His with considerably more violence than mine — but he’s not in heels. But it’s our passion. We’ve been chasing this since we were little kids.”
Swift added, “I don’t think I ever thought I’d meet a guy who had that same trajectory… You can have the two passions coexist, and they actually fuel each other.”
The couple has been publicly supportive of one another, with Kelce even joining Swift onstage during her Eras Tour stop in London. Fans cheered as he danced and helped carry her across the Wembley Stadium stage.
“The fans absolutely love Travis,” Swift said, adding that Swifties admire “the way he treats me.”
The couple announced their engagement on Instagram on August 26, marking another milestone in a love story that began with a friendship bracelet and a missed meeting.
Entertainment
US issues sanctions on family members and associates of Venezuela’s Maduro
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on family members and associates of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, as Washington ratchets up pressure on the Venezuelan president.
The US Treasury Department, in a statement, said it had imposed sanctions on seven people it said were tied to Maduro and his wife. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused them of “propping up Nicolas Maduro’s rogue narcostate.”
“We will not allow Venezuela to continue flooding our nation with deadly drugs,” Bessent said.
“Maduro and his criminal accomplices threaten our hemisphere’s peace and stability. The Trump administration will continue targeting the networks that prop up his illegitimate dictatorship.”
Venezuela’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Maduro and his government have vehemently denied links to crime and say that the US is seeking to oust him to take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
In recent months, the administration of US President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up pressure on Maduro, executing a large-scale military buildup in the southern Caribbean.
It has carried out strikes against suspected drug vessels in the region, seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, and declared a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
Trump has also repeatedly said that strikes on land in Venezuela are coming soon.
Friday’s action sanctioned relatives of Carlos Erik Malpica Flores, the nephew of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores. The US says Malpica Flores was involved in a corruption plot at state oil company PDVSA. He was sanctioned by Washington last week.
His mother – the sister of Maduro’s wife – as well as his father, sister, wife and daughter were hit with sanctions on Friday.
The Treasury on Friday also extended a general license protecting Venezuela-owned refiner Citgo Petroleum from creditors through February 3 that was set to expire on December 20. It was a far shorter extension than the last one the Treasury issued in June, which had a six-month duration.
Washington has protected the Houston-based company from creditors in recent years, even amid a court-organised auction of shares in its parent company, PDV Holding. The license temporarily bans transactions with a Venezuela-issued bond collateralised with Citgo equity.
A US judge in November authorised the sale of shares in the parent of Citgo Petroleum to an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management, following his approval of a $5.9 billion bid from the company in a court-organised auction to pay Venezuela-linked creditors.
The sale order, which is pending Treasury Department approval, was the last major legal step to wrap a two-year auction aimed at paying up to 15 creditors for debt defaults and expropriations.
Entertainment
Zoe Kravitz teases fans with ring in wedding finger
Zoe Kravitz has set off a fresh wave of speculation after being spotted wearing a ring on her wedding finger during a recent outing with Harry Styles, a detail that quickly caught the attention of fans.
The actress was seen strolling arm in arm with the pop star in Rome, looking relaxed and affectionate as the pair enjoyed time together, with the ring adding fuel to ongoing engagement rumours that first surfaced weeks ago.
The 37-year-old actress appeared comfortable and content alongside her 31-year-old boyfriend, choosing a casual look that included a cape-style jacket and a bright purple scarf.
As spotted by The Sun, Styles kept things low-key in a long grey coat, sunglasses resting on his head, while carrying a shopping bag after a stop at a jewellery store during what appeared to be a Christmas shopping trip.
The timing and setting only added to the curiosity surrounding the gold band on Kravitz’s ring finger.
The couple’s relationship became public earlier this year, with reports revealing they began dating casually in August after years of friendship.
An insider offered insight into why the couple seems less concerned about public attention this time around, saying, “Harry is a very private man – it’s no secret he’s dated lots of people but it’s not always so public.”
“If he wanted to, Harry knows exactly how to keep things underwraps. He’s been in this industry a long time and he knows how his fanbase reacts to things,” the source added.
“He doesn’t take introducing the world to a new girlfriend lightly. He has thought long and hard about it but he’s prepared for the backlash because he thinks Zoe is the real deal.”
The insider added, “It’s never easy for someone to date Harry and they’ve definitely chatted about what it will be like – and Zoe is fully on board. It’s not just a fling and them happily being snapped really shows that.”
Both stars come from recent high-profile relationships.
Styles previously dated director Olivia Wilde, while Kravitz became single in October 2024 after ending her engagement to actor Channing Tatum.
For now, neither has commented publicly on the ring, but the subtle detail has already spoken loudly to fans watching closely.
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