TRAGIC DIXIE CHICK NEVER MADE PEACE WITH BANDMATES!
Survivors eaten by guilt after Laura dies in freak accident
FOUNDING Dixie Chicks member Laura Lynch, 65, was killed instantly in a head-on highway smashup late last month in her native Texas, where she’d lived in anonymity for decades after being booted from the band!
Now, insiders dish her devastated former bandmates — sisters Emily Strayer, 51, and Martie Maguire, 54 — are haunted by regret for forcing the bluegrass babe out of the country group nearly 30 years ago.
According to lawmen, a pickup truck attempted to pass another car on an undivided stretch of roadway and plowed into the retired musician’s vehicle.
The other driver, whose name was withheld by police, was treated for non–lifethreatening injuries at a hospital. But Laura was pronounced dead at the scene. Laura, Emily and Martie — along with Robin Lynn Macy — were galloping toward a bright future playing oldschool cowgirl tunes in the early ’90s. But Emily and Martie were eager to pursue a more contemporary sound, causing Robin to defect. And in 1995, the savvy sisters replaced lead singer Laura with Natalie Maines, 49 — and 1998’s Wide Open Spaces, the new trio’s major-label debut, ultimately sold 35 million copies before they were canceled in 2003 for protesting against the U.S. war in Iraq. Laura once said leaving the group, now known as the Chicks, couldn’t
“be characterized as a resignation” and admitted she’d “cried every day for six months” after being canned! But shortly after Laura was given the boot, she reconnected with her high school sweetheart, rancher
Mac Tull, who’d recently won $26.8 million in a Lone Star State lottery! The couple tied the knot a few months later. “That certainly eased the pain for Laura. She was set for life,” a tipster tells The National ENQUIRER. “While she didn’t stay friends with Emily and Martie, she never fostered any ill will toward them. It wasn’t her style.
“But her death really hit the sisters. Emily and Martie thought back to when they were singing with Laura on street corners for tips and how hard Laura worked. “They know Laura built the base for the Dixie Chicks’ future success, and looking back, they regret they left her by the side of the road in the process!”
ANSWER
ICE SKATES
EVERYONE at the Denver Zoo knew Eirina had been two-timing her main squeeze, so when the heat was on to determine who was the biological father of her newborn girl, they called in the expert on determining paternity — TV icon
Maury Povich!
Eirina is a Sumatran orangutan — one of an endangered species — so correctly naming the branches of her spindly family tree is a matter of worldwide importance, and zoo officials didn’t want to monkey around.
That’s why they asked the 84-year-old daytime talk show host to settle the prickly paternity dispute over who is the rightful baby daddy to four-month-old Siska.
Was it Berani, 30, by all accounts a great ape when it comes to romance?
Or was it sly studly simian Jaya, 16?
Maury — who settled plenty of paternity cases while hosting his eponymous show from 1991 to 2022 — was happy to help, figuring if the zookeepers wanted to scratch his back, he’d scratch theirs.
Amid great fanfare, the longtime TV personality named the primate playboy in question by pulling out a piece of paper from a manila envelope and delivering the immortal words “Berani, you ARE the father!”
Now that the news is out, it seems clear that little Siska is a chimp off the old block — even though zoo officials admit her mom has enjoyed “some courtship and mating activity” with Berani’s toyboy rival, Jaya.
As for Berani, he’s ready to groom another gal. The original Orange Bachelor shares his living quarters with three other ladyloves and is approved for breeding through the Sumatran Orangutan Species Survival Plan!