When Renée Zellweger cited "fraud" as the reason for divorcing Kenny Chesney back in 2005, tabloid rumors were rampant with speculation that the country star was gay.

Now, Zellweger is speaking out about the rumors for the first time.

"That made me sad. It made me sad that somehow people were using that as a way to be cruel and calling someone gay as a pejorative, which has fateful consequences," Zellweger told Advocate. "Of course, there's the bigger-picture problem of why anyone had to make up a story at all."

At the time, the actress declared that the use of the word "fraud" was "simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny's character," and said she wasn't tempted to defend him publicly.

"I’d said all I needed to say on that subject," Zellweger said. "I’m an old-fashioned gal who doesn’t feel it’s appropriate to hang out your laundry on the lawn. I feel you devalue yourself as a human being when you share very personal things with a bajillion strangers who are making fun of you."

Even still, she added that it is hard to not speak out against something when it becomes so negative.

"Sometimes it is difficult to just let something be what it is, especially when it’s unnecessary ugliness," she said. "Once you’ve said your piece, shouldn’t that be enough? And why is the ugliness that’s perpetuated in the media so attractive to people?"

Meanwhile, Chesney commented on the gay rumors two years after the marriage was annulled, saying, "We thought the least harmful [stated reason] was fraud because it [is] kind of broad. And boy...we were wrong."

h/t: People