LeAnn Rimes is one of the most recognizable singers from the ’90s.
She rose to fame as a country singer at 13 with her hit song “Blue” in 1996.
She also had an acting career, starring in ABC made-for-TV movie Holiday in Your Heart, based on the book of the same name that LeAnne wrote.
LeAnn also had roles in big movies like Coyote Ugly and Anger Management.
The 41-year-old knows the difficulties of growing up in the public eye.
She spent her teenage years performing nonstop, unable to have a normal childhood. LeAnn also faced scrutiny from the media as she blossomed into a young woman.
In 2021, she opened up about the hardships of becoming famous at such a young age.
She said on her mental health podcast Wholly Human, “I can look back and recognize, I know, how much I have survived.”
LeAnn noted, “The traumatic parts of it kind of outshadow and outweigh the success and all of the accomplishments, so it’s nice to kind of look back and have a balanced view on both sides of things.”
The singer continued, “I always joke about this, but it’s not really funny… There was never anyone for me to really call on and say, ‘Hey, how did you get through this?’ Because most of us that start at that age are dead or still really shaken by the whole experience.”
Looking back at her career, she admitted that one of her 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.”
Now, LeAnn is standing up for a fellow singer who has experienced similar struggles.
In a profile with The Times, LeAnn shared her reaction to watching eye-opening 2021 documentary Controlling Britney Spears.
“I saw the Britney Spears documentary and was thinking, like, all these people that make money out of her and she has nothing to do with it,” she said.
LeAnn added, “It’s just soul-sucking. That poor girl. That poor woman, really.​​”
In the interview, LeAnn also opened up about her own painful experiences in the entertainment industry.
“I was America’s sweetheart. People didn’t want to see me grow up and explore my sexuality,” she shared.
LeAnn has been a longtime supporter of Britney’s.
In a 2022 interview with The Independent, she talked about seeing parallels between her career and the “Oops!… I Did It Again” singer’s.
“When you’re in the public eye, everybody wants to make money off of that at the end of the day​​,” said LeAnn.
“You become a commodity instead of a human being and that’s what breaks my heart. And I’ve been there—I’ve experienced a lot of the same things,” she explained.
LeAnn added, “My heart deeply goes out to her.​​”
Referring to the ITV interview with Britney’s son Jayden, LeAnn said, “I just saw something about her ex-husband and his family doing an interview about her, and my first thought was, ‘Leave this poor woman alone! She’s been through enough!’​​”
In 2008, Britney was placed under a conservatorship controlled by her father Jamie and attorney Andrew Wallet.
11 years later, an anonymous person who said they were formerly from her legal team sent a voicemail to podcast Britney’s Gram, detailing the alleged mistreatment Britney experienced in her conservatorship.
The source claimed that Britney’s planned second Las Vegas residency was canceled by Jamie because the pop star refused to take her medication. She was also said to have been involuntarily held in a mental health facility after driving, which was was banned from doing so.
After the Free Britney movement reached a peak in 2021, with fans demanding for the icon’s conservatorship to be dropped, Britney gave a testimony in court detailing the alleged treatment she experienced.
“I’ve worked since I was 17 years old. You have to understand how thin that is for me. Every morning I get up… I can’t go on somewhere unless I meet people I don’t know every week in an office identical to the one where the therapist was very abusive to me,” she told the judge.
Britney continued, “I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive. And now we can sit here all day and say, ‘Oh, conservatorships are here to help people.’ But ma’am, there’s a thousand conservatorships that are abusive as well.​​”
In her testimony, she said she didn’t have control over the medication she had to take, and was forced to get an IUD so she wouldn’t have more children.
“I have an IUD inside of myself right now, so I don’t get pregnant,” she explained.
She added, “I wanted to take the IUD out so I could start trying to have another baby. But this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they they don’t want me to have children — any more children.​​”Â
The conservatorship ended on Nov. 12, 2021.
