You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
How a story is born.
I get a simple text Wednesday morning.
“Not much over night. Just an unwanted visitor at Kenny Chesney’s. That’s about it.”
Bada Bing. Bada Boom!
It may not be much to the source, but I’ve been doing this a while.
I know the phrase: unwanted visitor and Kenny Chesney is going to blow up like Kirstie Alley in a donut factory.
Armed with a text message, my next call is to the sheriff’s department. Sources there tell me they don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
I’ve been down this road before. Sometimes you get ahead of the story. I quickly deduce that the midnight shift handled this misdemeanor call. That means the paperwork hasn’t made it to the power brokers yet. It’s a misdemeanor. It wouldn’t normally raise an eye brow in a grizzled law man’s life, but this day will be a little different.
I go into the newsroom and see my boss.
“A woman was arrested at Kenny Chesney’s house this morning. She was out near his pool drinking wine,” I say non chalantly.
The boss laughs, blurting out. “That’s gonna go national.”
He was right.
within the hour I’m interviewing a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department.
He plays it pretty close to the vest, essentially reading me the arrest affadavits. But he does say some interesting, that the woman believed she was in a relationship with the country music super star.
The charges are nothing. They are a mosquitoe biting a rhinoceros. Public Intoxication and Criminal Tresspassing. Both are misdemeanors.
But a misdemeanor at Kenny Chesney’s house is gonna be news. It’s Clint Eastwood yelling “Hey kids get off my lawn.”
I go to the neighborhood where Chesney lives. The sub division is full of huge homes. It’s the American Dream on steroids. I drive up and up and up. The vista is delightful. Every lawn neatly manicured, every house just right.
I go as far as I can and look into the clouds, above the rainbow, where the gold is spun by fairies and there I see the Chesney compound.
It is a palatial estate looking down on the land of milk and honey.
The singer’s home is high on a hill, up a driveway a 1000 feet long. It presides majestically over the pastoral hills of Williamson County like Mount Olympus presided over Greece.
The Chesney estate makes these 5,000 square foot homes seem like double wides.
I shoot the electronic gate near the cul-de-sac. A woman in sweat pants comes out and politely asks me what the hell i’m doing. I tell her about the intrusion. She seems horrified.
According to my sources, the 31 year old intruder tells law men she went to Knoxville to visit with Kenny Chesney’s family. When she doesn’t make contact there, she reportedly boards a greyhound bus and travels to Music City. She tells deputies she got a limo at the bus station to take her to the Chesney gate. Once there she made her way up the side of shangrila to the rear of the mansion to the pool area.
Somewhere along the way she trips an alarm and authorities find her in a bathroom with a couple of bottles of wine.
It’s the usual story of girl loves boy who isn’t home and breaks into his mansion to get drunk and smoke some Marlboros.
The woman is reportedly drunk, and possibly delusional telling officers she is in a relationship with Kenny Chesney.
Not in this lifetime honey.
The country music star is not home. His p.r. firm will later tell me that he doesn’t know who she is.
The woman is in jail under a 1,000 bond. That means she only needs about $135 dollars to get out. Apparently she doesn’t have it, so she stews in the grey bar hotel.
I’ve covered a lot of crime stories. I don’t think I ever met a perp who didn’t have $135 dollars to post bond.
What the hell does that tell ya?
After my story airs, it goes viral. It is picked up by the AP and many other media outlets. That’s satisfying.
The woman’s brother reportedly sees the story wherever the hell he lives and calls the station. he reportedly says his sister has spent some time in a mental institution and she may actually believe she is romantically linked to Kenny Chesney.
Makes you wonder what Brad Pitt was doing on the social calendar of her dreams.
The story picks up steam by Thursday and answers the age old question; what celebrity gossip won’t people inhale like crack?
I laugh out loud knowing that the whole damn snow ball starts with a simple text from a well placed source.
And that my friends is how the news baby is birthed.
And that is crazy.