LeAnn Rimes wants the world to know she is “not a pill popping queen”.
The 32-year-old country music singer and her actor husband Eddie Cibrian recently put their lives under public scrutiny with a TV show called LeAnn & Eddie. But that doesn’t mean she’s happy for people to gossip about her.
“It turns out I’m NOT a pill popping queen, sorry to let everyone down,” she told HuffPostUK.
In the first episode of their VH1 reality series, LeAnn was seen rolling her eyes at the notion that people apparently believe she is “an alcoholic, pill popper and children stealer”.
And although the star has become accustomed to the nastiness, she feels it’s her job to change public perceptions.
“It’s sad to say I’ve got used to people being a**holes,” she lamented. “I’ve built up a thick skin. But my music has been overshadowed. I don’t want it to be like that, and I can change it, but I have to create music to do it,” she said.
That doesn’t mean her new series is taking too much of a back seat though. Part of the reason LeAnn and Eddie signed on for the TV series was to show the world who they really are.
“My husband and I wanted to have fun and work together, and show a side to us that, behind the headlines, has never been told,” she explained. “We’re both smart a**es, there’s a lot of humour between us, so we wanted to show that and have some fun.
The now-married couple have been in the media spotlight since the news broke of their extramarital affair in 2009. At the time, Eddie was married to Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville and LeAnn’s husband was backup dancer Dean Sheremet.
There have subsequently been fierce Twitter feuds between LeAnn and Brandi, which created more public discussion.
“[The show gave] us a chance to take our lives back. And I think it did change perceptions,” LeAnn said.
