What Happened to LeAnn Rimes?

 

What Happened to LeAnn Rimes?

Margaret LeAnn Rimes was born on August 28, 1982 in Jackson, MS, the only child of Wilbur and Belinda Rimes. Wilbur was a talented singer and despite never pursuing a music career, he carried his musical traits to his only daughter. At the early age of two, she sang “Jesus Loves Me” and her father was very impressed. He enrolled his daughter in vocal and dance classes and by the age of five was performing in talent shows, which she won thanks to a tap-dancing routine. After winning the talent show, her dad started to take her seriously and became her de-facto manager & producer. They moved to Dallas, TX and would be booked regularly on Johnnie High's Country Music Revue. They did this to get her name out there. She also performed the National Anthem for the Dallas Cowboys regularly.

In 1991, she released her debut album Everybody’s Sweetheart independently. Thanks to this album, LeAnn got discovered by promoter Bill Mack. Her father Wilbur asked Mack if he had any songs he could give to LeAnn. Mack had one called “Blue”. It was a song that he recorded for himself back in 1958 but wasn’t successful. So, he pitched it to Patsy Cline but she was unable to record it due to her untimely plane crash in 1963. Blue would be placed on her second independent album All That. Blue was pushed to local radio, and eventually landed on Nashville radio. And that’s when Curb Records came in and offered LeAnn Rimes a recording contract and at 13 years old, she signed.

The next year she released her major label debut Blue. It had a re-recorded version of Blue. However, some stations kept playing the original version. Whatever the case was, Blue reached #10 on the Country Charts and crossed over to #26 on the Hot 100. Blue had one more major single called One Way Ticket and that gave LeAnn her first #1 hit on the Country Charts despite failing to chart on the Hot 100. Blue the album was a massive success going 6x Platinum. In 1997, she won two Grammys for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for Blue and the coveted and somehow cursed Best New Artist and with this she became the youngest to ever win Best New Artist at 14. She also became the first country artist to win said award and did all this while having a 104 degrees fever.

Now everyone is talking about LeAnn Rimes. Sometime after winning the Grammy, she met with iconic songwriter Diane Warren. She was working on a soundtrack for the movie Con Air and had LeAnn Rimes in mind for one of the singles. That single was “How Do I Live”. Then things get a little odd. When Diane Warren presented the song to executives, they wanted someone else recording it as they felt LeAnn wasn’t mature enough to do the song. So, they recruited Trisha Yearwood to record the song instead and that made the Con Air soundtrack. But Diane & LeAnn wanted to release their version, and knowing country radio was going to play the Yearwood version, they decided to release the song to pop radio. The gamble worked massively the song reached #2 on the Hot 100 and lasted 69 weeks on the charts (nice), and that became the longest running female song in chart history at the time. Trisha Yearwood’s version was also successful going #2 on the Country Charts, #23 on Hot 100, and Yearwood won a Grammy for Best Female Country Performance (in which Rimes version was also nominated for), it was a mess.

 In 1997 she released her 4^th studio album You Light Up My Life: Inspirational Songs. The album was filled with covers while featuring some original material. Despite having How Do I Live on the album, the album was negatively reviewed by critics, but despite these critics the album still went 4x Platinum. What makes things worse was that her parents got a divorce and was finalized by decades end. In 1998, she released her fifth album Sittin on Top of the World. The album featured the song “Commitment” and that reached #4 on the Country Charts. Then she got an opportunity to record for the Quest for Camelot soundtrack and the song was called “Looking Through Your Eyes”. Written by David Foster the song reached #18 on the Hot 100. Third was Nothin New Under the Moon and that reached #10 on the Country Charts. Even though it was another negative reviewed album, the project still went platinum. This is where she started to date actor Andrew Keegan and she moved to Los Angeles. In 2000, LeAnn Rimes sued her father/manager/main producer Wilbur as she alleged that he took $7 million from her over 5 years. She also sued Curb Records as she wanted out of that contract. While the lawsuit with her father was settled out of court, her lawsuit with Curb records was unsuccessful. Upon hearing the ruling, Leann mouthed the words “I Hate You” to her father. She was able to rework her contract with Curb Records.

Back to the music, she contributed songs for the Jesus miniseries on the song I Need You. The song reached #8 on the country charts, #11 on the Hot 100. And for the movie Coyote Ugly soundtrack, she did four songs on that soundtrack. One of those songs was “Can’t Fight the Moonlight”, which was a more pop oriented than her previous works. The song reached the top 10 in various countries just missing it in the US at #11. But her relationship with Andrew Keegan came to an end after three years of dating siting schedule differences.

Not long after, she met dancer Dean Sheremet. They became engaged and married in 2002. At the wedding was her father, whom they had a falling out years earlier. They decided to reconcile. She also reconciled with her label Curb Records by renegotiating a new deal. She celebrated this new deal by releasing her seventh album Twisted Angel. The album saw the departure of country sound for more crossover pop songs. But like with Jewel’s “Intuition” the move was met with negative reviews and the album failed to spawn any top hits. So, she went back to the lab and returned to country with her ninth album That Woman and that album spawned three top 10 country songs, “Nothin bout Love Makes Sense”, “Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way”, “Something’s Gotta Give” as This Woman went gold.

LeAnn once again moved to Los Angeles to focus on television movie career. In 2009 she filmed a Lifetime movie called Northern Lights. She had a co-star named Eddie Cibrian. The two got close but the problem was that Eddie was married to TV personality Brandi Glanville and they shared two children. Should be noted that LeAnn was separated with her husband during the move to LA. Brandi found out about the affair when the press posted pictures of LeAnn having lunch with Eddie. Brandi filed for divorce as a result of the affair. LeAnn initially denied the cheating allegations until owning it. She would file for divorce with her husband and it was finalized in 2010. The next year LeAnn Rimes would marry Eddie Cibrian.

In 2011, she released her twelfth album Lady and Gentleman. A cover album, the album featured the song “Swingin” and that was nominated for Best Female Country Performance (the final year that award was given). In 2013, LeAnn released her final album for Curb with Spitfire. That album mostly talked about the affair with her now husband. But the album itself wasn’t successful.

In 2014, she and Eddie did a reality show called LeAnn & Eddie on VH1. In 2020 she did the fourth season of the Masked Singer as Sun, winning that season. The music hasn’t stopped either. She released Remnants in 2016, Chant the Human and the Holy in 2020 & God’s Work in 2022. Her most recent years have been seen on the Voice international. She was a panel on the Voice 13 for Australia & UK. LeAnn is an advocate for psoriasis, a skin disease that causes skin cells to develop faster than usual causing flaky skin. She even wrote two children’s books with Jag and Jag’s New Friend. LeAnn became a veteran in country music before she was legal to drink, paving the way for young women in country music as she is still performing and still touring.

SOURCES

https://www.britannica.com/biography/LeAnn-Rimes

LeAnn Rimes – Biography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Le4wHIJVAM

https://www.nickiswift.com/253488/the-leann-rimes-cheating-scandal-explained/

https://www.mamamia.com.au/leann-rimes-kids/