The man arrested for the deadly shooting at a crowded dockside restaurant in North Carolina once escorted “American Idol” star Kellie Pickler to the CMT Music Awards — and recently sued her, bizarrely claiming she tried to fatally poison him with tainted Jim Beam whiskey at the star-studded event.
Nigel Edge, who changed his name from Sean DeBevoise in 2023, appeared in his Marine uniform on the red carpet in 2012 alongside the singer as her special date for the night, accompanied by his service dog Rusty.
“Me and my date (Sgt Sean Debevoise),” Picker said on X as she posted a picture of her with the military veteran.
DeBevoise, who was wounded in Iraq, boasted about the honor of being Pickler’s date at the event.
“I am ecstatic about being here at the CMT Music Awards with Kellie, even more to consider her a friend,” he said at the time, according to Taste of Country. “She is the most sincere person I know. She is an angel.”
The pair had previously met at a charity event in North Carolina dedicated to the troops.
But their rosy relationship eventually faded – with Edge suing Pickler in February, claiming she tried to kill him with a poison-laced glass of whiskey that night.
The only reason he survived was because he refused the drink it, Edge wrote in court documents obtained by TMZ.
Edge even included photos of him and Pickler at the event in his suit, while incorrectly calling the awards the “CMAs” instead of the CMTs throughout the suit, TMZ noted.
North Carolina authorities identified Edge, 39, as a combat veteran allegedly suffering from PTSD when he was taken into custody Saturday night after the mass shooting, which left three people dead and five others injured.
Law-enforcement sources described Edge as also harboring numerous Q-Anon conspiracy theories.
Edge pulled up to the American Fish Company restaurant in Southport Yacht Basin, about 30 miles south of Wilmington, and began spraying bullets into the crowd of unsuspecting diners, authorities said.
His litigation against Pickler was just the latest in a series of wacky lawsuits he filed in the last year, which included numerous allegations that a cabal of “LGBTQ White Supremacists” and pedophiles were trying to murder him because he’s a “straight man.”
He accused Southport’s Generations Church of being in on the plot, along with the Brunswick Medical center of trying to kill him – with both lawsuits being dismissed.
And he even wrote a book “Headshot: Betrayal of a Nation” where he described being wounded during deployment in Iraq and claimed that was also a part of the conspiracy to kill him.
Edge has said he was wounded in two separate IED attacks during a 2006 tour in Iraq, and also suffered a bullet wound that left shrapnel lodged in his head.
A representative for Pickler did not respond to a Post request for comment Sunday.
Edge was armed with a short barrel AR rifle, equipped with a suppressor, a folding stock and scope during Saturday’s attack, court documents charge.
He faces three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
In various lawsuits and a book he wrote about his combat history, Edge claimed he was the victim of friendly fire in a plot orchestrated by “LGBTQ White Supremacists” who wanted him dead for being a straight man.
The motive behind Saturday’s attack has yet to be determined, police said.
