In his new book, Heart Life Music, Kenny Chesney looked back on when his relationship with longtime love Mary Nolan “shifted.”
Chesney, 57, recalled his therapist showing up at his door just before Christmas in 2011 with a goldendoodle puppy. “You need to learn to attach to something,” she told the country singer, who was “completely unsure” what would happen next.
Despite his initial hesitation, Chesney found himself falling in love with the dog, who he named Poncho. Soon after, Nolan adopted a dog of her own, “a red-nosed pit bull terrier so badly abused she cowered in the back of her space” in the local animal rescue.
“Suddenly, it was me, Ponch, Ruby, and Mary; we were a family,” Chesney wrote in the book, published Tuesday, November 4.
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The family stayed together even though Chesney and Nolan grew apart. “Even after my relationship with Mary shifted — and that’s another reality: trying to protect people you love’s privacy, because they didn’t sign up for anything beyond loving this person who chases a dream — we had Ruby and Poncho to consider,” the musician wrote. “They’d never been apart since they’d met. Whether we moved on or not, our dogs shouldn’t have to suffer. … Even though we shifted, we would always share our dogs.”
Chesney noted that “joint custody” was “too rigid a label” for the arrangement between himself and Nolan. “It wasn’t that Poncho was mine and Ruby was Mary’s,” he explained. “They were best friends, and they were ‘ours.’”
Things eventually took a turn when Ruby “started slowing down.” Despite the vet’s advice, Nolan believed the dog wasn’t “ready to go,” so the pair brought both Ruby and Poncho out to California to enjoy their last moments together.
“We were making the best of something that was going to trample our hearts,” he recalled.
In December 2022, Nolan got word that Ruby “slipped into heaven,” and a friend filled in Chesney on what happened. “Ruby taught us all so many lessons. About moving beyond what you know, how love is so much bigger than you can ever believe, how it transcends things mere people can’t get beyond. Everyone who met her was better for it,” he continued.
Chesney and Nolan were first linked in 2012 but kept their relationship largely out of the spotlight. In 2014, the couple made a rare appearance at the 2014 American Country Countdown Awards in Nashville. The following year, they were spotted sitting with Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Texas.
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As Chesney prepared to accept the Pinnacle Award at the 2016 CMA Awards, the pair were caught sharing a quick kiss in the audience. It’s unclear when exactly they called it quits.
Before his relationship with Nolan, Chesney was briefly married to Renée Zellweger in 2005. In a recent interview with People, the Grammy nominee called music the biggest love of his life.
“I love what I do. I love making music,” he told the outlet, “and I love being on that stage, more than any place in the world.”
With more than three decades in the industry, Chesney has been presented with plenty of big lessons. “I mean, I don’t know if I’ve learned that much. I think I’m still figuring it out. That’s OK, too. I’ve been traveling for 30 years,” he added with a laugh. “But I think for me now, the thing that I value the most is authenticity. And no matter what it is, whether it’s a relationship or whether it’s [in writing] music, I think as a human being, all of us are an average of the five people we hang around the most. So, you choose those very wisely.”
Chesney’s Heart Life Music is available now.
