Q&A | LeAnn Rimes: Singer waiting for spotlight to swing back on her music

In 1997, when 14-year-old country prodigy LeAnn Rimes became the youngest person ever to win a Grammy, who could have known that one day she would be forced to remind the world that she can actually sing?

These days, many people know her first as a tabloid fixture famous for lawsuits, bikinis and — most salacious of all — her relationship with husband Eddie Cibrian, whom she met when the actor was married to another woman.In August, she checked into rehab for “anxiety and stress”; last month, she had to cancel shows after undergoing emergency treatment for a dental infection.

“When I signed up when I was younger, it was all about singing, all about music, and that’s what it’s all about to me today,” the 30-year-old singer said.“If all the rest could go away and I could just make music, it would be nice. But that’s not the world I live in at this moment. Maybe, eventually, it’ll come back to that one day. I’m hoping that I’m doing it with this record: ‘Hello? Over here? I sing, remember?’??”

The record is Spitfire, a forthcoming studio album that she co-wrote.

Calling from her Los Angeles home, Rimes recently talked about artistic honesty and the price of fame.?

Q: Spitfire has been called your “most personal album yet.” What does that mean?

A: Well, I started out as a child, and I’ve gone through everything in front of the public, up and down, and my life has been quite an interesting ride the last four years. I’ve felt like I maybe had a piece of tape over my mouth in a lot of ways. I think it’s all coming out through my music, which is great. I have a lot to write about. There’s nothing that I can’t say at this moment in time.Q: Do you feel an obligation as an artist to be an open book to your fans? Or have you realized that you need to be open in your life in general?

A: I think it’s my life in general. Growing up in the country-music industry, and especially as a kid back in the ’90s, I was always told I couldn’t have an opinion. It becomes this weird world of a child star trying to please everyone.

This album has been exploring who I am, and who I am is honest. I think everyone has kind of laid my life out for me in the last four years, in the way that they would like to see it happen, or the way that they think it’s happened. This is my truth. It comes from my heart and soul.

?Q: How has what it means to be famous changed?

A: The world when I was 13 wasn’t truly driven by tabloid magazines and social media and reality shows. I was able to have a little more of a private life. I live in L.A. now. I have two wonderful stepboys and my husband, and I’m here, and it’s part of my life. But it’s also a part that I don’t really wish on anybody (laughing).