I was going to write a Friday rant on Britney Spears’ new baby — the one she had with some guy I’ve never heard of — but then I realized how much I didn’t care. I decided instead to write about Renee Zellweger’s marriage — the one she had with some guy I’ve never heard of.
Zellweger has filed for an annulment from her husband after just four months of marriage. In court papers filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the listed “fraud” as the reason for the breakup with the country music star. Fraud? Really? Like, he pretended they were just going to get fishin’ licenses and “Oops” they got married?
Zellweger tried to clear this up saying the term was “simply legal language and not a refection of Kenny’s character.” But, isn’t that in itself fraud? Fraud generally involves one party misrepresenting some material fact to the other party, and that other party having relied on that misrepresentation as a basis for the marriage.
Usually, to file an action based on fraud, you must have immediately separated from your spouse as soon as you learned of the fraud. This is true for lack of consent circumstances as well. You cannot cohabitate after discovery of the fraud. The longer the marriage continued from the time consent was possible or fraud was discovered, the less likely the court will be to grant your request.
The realm of possibilities that one can imagine here is just too much to resist. He wasn’t of age? He was already married and has eight kids in a housetrailer in Oklahoma? What is it? We can’t wait to find out. We only wish we could be more charitable, like Ms. Zellweger, who’s already demanded that the court rule out the possibility of financial support.
