LOVE ROCKS
Newly engaged Lavigne, Kroeger sing each other’s praises,
Call them a supergroup. Call them the new Canadian musical royalty. Or, inevitably, call them Chavril.
The normally sedate world of Canadian showbiz gossip was thunderstruck Tuesday and the reverberations kept coming with details of the surprise engagement of petite pop star Avril Lavigne and hirsute Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger.
Kroeger told Hello! Canada magazine he fell for Lavigne, pride of Napanee, Ont., as they worked on her upcoming album in Paris.
The Hanna, Alta., rocker said, “I knew I was falling for her. It was incredibly powerful and something I’ll never forget,” adding he feels “like the luckiest person alive.”
Months ago, apparently in the middle of the discreet six-month romance, the 37-year-old rocker told a Boston radio station that the two had chemistry in the studio: “We just started flying on all these songs . . . ‘Let’s do another one, let’s do another one.’ It was amazing.”
Earlier, in a CBS interview, Lavigne concurred that she, Kroeger and writer/producer David Hodges had been enjoying extremely productive recording studio sessions and “having a really great time . . . It feels good for me to be around people like that.”
But more than music was going on. Hello! quotes Lavigne, 27, as saying Kroeger “makes me laugh every day. He takes care of me in every way and is extremely attentive” — a notion that might surprise some music fans, as the Nickelback singer has been criticized for perceived misogyny in his lyrics.
Those fans would be even more surprised to hear what Hello! editor-in-chief Alison Eastwood told The Canadian Press: Kroeger proposed by scrapbook. Apparently Lavigne was scrapbooking and, on Aug. 8, Kroeger surreptitiously inserted an extra page with the words, “Will you marry me?” Eastwood suggested that he was the one who “sounded more romantic.”
Paris was where the romance began, but Life & Style reports that the couple, whom Twitter users have dubbed Chavril (and compared, tongue in cheek, to a royal wedding), celebrated the good news in another glitzy locale.
“They went to 1 Oak Nightclub in Las Vegas on Aug. 21 to celebrate their engagement,” an eyewitness told the magazine.
“They were super cuddly and affectionate,” the eyewitness added. “They drank Dom Pérignon and Grey Goose.” The latter refreshment was entirely in character for Lavigne. Grey Goose seemed to be a staple of Lavigne’s life during her romance and first marriage with Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley (also a fellow Canadian, from Ajax). “She can pound the vodka,” Kroeger confirmed to the Boston station. Hello! Canada has engagement photos, in which Lavigne is wearing a pear-shaped, 14-carat diamond ring. She filed for divorce from Whibley in 2009 after three years of marriage. This will be the first marriage for Kroeger, although no date has been set. Kroeger had a common-law partnership with salon owner Marianne Gurick, which ended in 2009; in 2011, interim spousal support was set at $25,000 per month.