NEED TO KNOW
Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter made magic on their 2011 hit “You and Tequila” — but just the musical kind.
The singers showed off their chemistry with a romantic music video that accompanied the Grammy-nominated single, and in his new book Heart Life Music, Chesney reveals that many people thought he and Potter were a real-life item.
“Anyone who’s ever seen that video assumes we were having sex. Even Mom thought we were sleeping together, but that wasn’t true,” he writes in the book.
The beachy video features Chesney, 57, and Potter, 42, goofing around together on the beach, taking shots at the bar, laughing together in bed and even sharing a few kisses.
Kenny Chesney/Youtube
Still, Chesney wrote that their chemistry came not from romance, but from their “gypsy souls,” and their joint desire to “chase music where it takes us.” He added that she became a close friend, and he has “told her things I wouldn’t tell anyone else.”
The two reunited in 2014 on Chesney’s song “Wild Child,” with Potter telling the Bobby Bones Show in 2019 that they “just had so much fun, we were trying to figure out excuses to keep making music together.”
The “Stars” singer — who is now married to music producer Eric Valentine — said their working relationship began with a cold call from Chesney, who’d heard a CD of Potter’s after a mutual friend gave it to him.
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“He was just like, bored on his boat, put it on, heard me singing a song I’d written when I was in my teens called ‘Apologies,’ and he was just like, ‘That. I want that,’” she recalled. “That song [‘You and Tequila’], when it landed in my inbox, I didn’t know what it would mean for me or my career to wander into that realm until I heard that song. That’s when I understood that I always had country in my bones. It was there all along.”
“You and Tequila,” which was featured on Chesney’s 2010 album Hemingway’s Whiskey, was nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Country Song at the Grammy Awards in 2012.
Chesney opened up to PEOPLE in last week’s issue about his book Heart Life Music, which was released on Nov. 4.
“I know this sounds crazy, but to be in front of 60,000 people on stage, that is where I feel the most comfortable in my life. It truly is. Because when we’re up there for two hours, nobody can mess with me or the band. It’s just us giving the audience everything we have and the audience giving everything back,” he said. “That is one of the most unbelievable feelings that I’ve ever felt in my life. It’s my drug of choice. I don’t regret giving my whole adult life to creating because… what a way to live. That’s what I’ve always done.”
