A ‘BLUE’ BABY
Rimes recalls ‘traumatic’ childhood fame
LeAnn Rimes rarely talks about her childhood stardom, but in a new interview, the singer says she is still coping with the ripple effects of her “traumatic” early fame.
“I can look back and recognize, I think, how much I have survived,” Rimes told USA Today ahead of the second season of her mental health podcast “Wholly Human.”
“There was never anyone for me to really call on and say, ‘Hey, how did you get through this?’ Because most all of us that start at that age are dead or still really shaken by the whole experience,” she said.
Rimes, 38, admitted she’s “still dealing” with “the traumatic parts” of her formative years because sometimes she feels they “outweigh the success.”
“I feel like probably one of my greatest accomplishments has been surviving childhood stardom and thriving past it and finding my own healing and my own healing journey because not everyone is so fortunate,” she said.
In 2017, Rimes told People Magazine she “would not recommend” pushing the spotlight on any child.
She went into more detail on the first season of “Wholly Human,” saying she felt isolated as a teen.
“As a kid, it was so easy for me to claim my greatness. I had no fear around that. As I actually had more and more success as a child, there’s a great loneliness in that. It almost feels like the thing that I received love from also pushed love away,” she said.
“The thing I received love from, which was when I would sing and do something otherworldly and great … it became something that could easily push love away,” she explained.
Rimes exploded on the country music scene at the tender age of 13 with her wildly successful cover of the Bill Mack song “Blue.”
She then made history in 1997 by becoming both the youngest-ever Grammy winner and first-ever country star to win Best New Artist, beating out Sean Combs that year.
Her dad helmed her career throughout her youth, but she later sued him and a co-manager for theft in 2000, claiming they stole more than $7 million from her during her meteoric rise.
The lawsuit was settled, and she and her estranged dad mended their relationship when she married husband Eddie Cibrian.
Rimes also revealed last year that she was diagnosed with psoriasis at age 2. She said that four years later 80% of her body was pocked with itchy red spots that she felt she needed to conceal.
“When I was in public, I did everything I could to hide it. Onstage, I’d often wear two pairs of pantyhose or jeans — even in 95-degree heat,” she told Glamour. “Underneath my shirt, my whole stomach would be covered in thick scales that would hurt and bleed. For so much of my life, I felt like I had to hide.”
Rimes told USA Today she’s learning to be less of a people pleaser and more of a “boundary queen.”
“I think ... really knowing when to walk away and give people space and take space for yourself, I think those are all key pieces to family unit survival and communication,” she said.