KENNY CHESNEY EXPLAINS HIS ANNULMENT FROM RENEE ZELLWEGER FOR THE FIRST TIME, DENYING THE RUMORS IT FOSTERED -- "60 MINUTES"

In his first comments about his annulment from Renee Zellweger, Kenny Chesney explains why the word "fraud" was checked on the separation document and denies the gay rumors it fueled. The music star talks to Anderson Cooper for a 60 MINUTES profile to be broadcast Sunday, Feb. 18 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Chesney and Zellweger married just four months after they met in January 2005 and split four months later. "The only fraud that was committed was me thinking that I knew what it was like...that I really understood what it was like to be married, and I really didn't," Chesney tells Cooper. "We thought the least harmful [stated reason] was fraud because it [is] kind of broad...doesn't specify. And boy...we were wrong."

They were wrong because the word "fraud" fueled rumors that Chesney was gay, especially because it was Zellweger who checked it and she also asked for an annulment rather than a divorce. "It's not true. Period. Maybe I should have come out and said no, I'm not [gay], but I didn't want to draw any more attention to it....I didn't have to prove to anybody that I wasn't [gay]...I didn't feel like I really did," says Chesney.

Despite the rumors, he has no regrets, he says. "Not at all. Not one bit," he tells Cooper. "Even though I'd sit here and say I wish we'd gotten divorced instead of all that annulment stuff and saved me a lot of public humiliation...I still don't have any regrets. I loved her, you know? And it was real," says Chesney.

In the profile Chesney also discusses his music, his small town upbringing and the secret way the performer is delivered to the stage for his concerts.