DIXIE CHICKS - DIXIE CHICKS SET TO SPLIT AFTER THE GRAMMYS?

DIXIE CHICKS SET TO SPLIT AFTER THE GRAMMYS?

Country trio the DIXIE CHICKS are hatching a secret plan to split up after the Grammy Awards next February (07) because sisters MARTIE MAGUIRE and EMILY ROBISON want to concentrate on being great mothers. Insiders claim the siblings are "tired and wrung out" after spending the past three years defending themselves from comments singer NATALIE MAINES made onstage in London in 2003 - and they're desperate for a long-term break. The trio became the targets of fierce backlash from the country music world when Maines announced she was ashamed to come from the same state (Texas) as US PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH. And now insiders claim the sisters have had enough of celebrity and want to hang up their fiddles. A source tells US tabloid National Enquirer, "They feel they've come to the end , and they want a break from each other to spend more time with their families." And the insider claims the "passive" siblings are so sick of having to support outspoken Maines, and the controversies she has created have driven a wedge between the trio. The source adds, "They've received death threats and it's made them all nervous wrecks... Natalie has so ruined things for the band that they can't stand to be around her, and they get in huge-in-your-face shouting matches."