Nigel Max Edge aka Sean William DeBevoise once escorted ‘American Idol’ star Kellie Pickler to CMT Music Awards only to later sue her for attempted murder, one of many bizarre lawsuits the Southport, North Carolina gunman who shot 3 dead filed.
A 40 year old Oak Island, North Carolina man since charged with the Southport marina shooting that left 3 dead 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 Max Edge, who changed his name from Sean William DeBevoise in 2023 and had served as a former military veteran before transitioning to being a fisherman 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.
🚨UPDATE: The alleged shooter at Southport Yacht Basin in North Carolina, Nigel Max Edge (formerly Sean DeBevoise), was Country Singer Kellie Pickler’s date to the 2012 CMT Awards.
Nigel Max Edge would later sue Pickler after he claims she attempted to murder him… pic.twitter.com/JmpcexadOP
— Algovich (@Algovich_) September 28, 2025
Southport shooter and former vet alleged country star tried to kill him in lawsuit
‘Me and my date (Sgt Sean Debevoise),’ Picker said on X as she posted a picture of her with the military vet.
DeBevoise, who was wounded in Iraq, boasted about the honor of being Pickler’s date at the event at the time.
‘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.
Soon after Edge sued Pickler, claiming she tried to kill him with a poison-laced glass of whiskey during the music awards.
The only reason he survived was because he refused the drink it, Edge wrote in court documents. The suspected murderer represented himself in the filing.
Nigel Max Edge bizarre lawsuits
His litigation against Pickler was one of many bizarre lawsuits the former vet 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.’
In his last filed suit on July 25th, Edge 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.
North Carolina authorities arrested Edge, 39, a former combat veteran allegedly suffering from PTSD in the Southport mass shooting, which left three people dead and five others injured.
At the time of the late Saturday night shooting, Edge is alleged to have pulled up in a single engine boat along the Southport marina before firing at the American Fish Company restaurant in Southport Yacht Basin into unsuspecting diners and revelers, authorities said.
Authorities had yet to release a known motive.
