14 DAY TRIAL // Initially, LeAnn Rimes said she would be going to rehab to receive help for “stress and exhaustion”-related issues, but she’s recanted that statement already. While she strives to keep details as vague as possible, rumors are picking up that she never had a real problem to begin with.
The latest print issue of Star Magazine notes the same (story via CB), writing that she could have invented a problem and the subsequent rehab stint just to win sympathy from the people at home.
Perhaps, the mag writes, she felt like a rehab stint and following media tour could get her some positive media attention for a change, after years of being thrashed in the tabs for her relationship with her now-husband Eddie Cibrian, who was married at the time they were caught making out in a restaurant.
So was she, for that matter.
“Alcohol? Drugs? An eating disorder? LeAnn Rimes didn’t cite any of the usual Hollywood reasons for why she entered a 30-day treatment facility,” Star notes.
“That has lit up the rumor mill on the Internet, with some suggesting that the singer invented the entire thing as a twisted publicity stunt to garner public sympathy. While her reps strongly deny that’s the case, there is little evidence she ever went anywhere,” adds the same media outlet.
Indeed, LeAnn was initially supposed to spend 30 days in rehab and then only went away for less than 3 weeks, and then too she got the weekends “off” to tour and meet with the fans for promo events.
This, and her obvious reluctance to speak about the reasons that prompted her to get help in the first place, would confirm that the whole thing was a scam, the aforementioned e-zine says.
“LeAnn has endured years of bad press, thanks to her affair with then married Eddie Cibrian, followed by a very public feud with his ex-wife, Brandi Glanville, and frequent tirades against Twitter users. And her career hasn’t’ fared much better,” Star writes.
An unnamed insider confirms the story, saying LeAnn is showing clear signs of trying to boost her career by playing the victim. Apparently, she believes it’s the only thing that could work at this point.
“She barely gets invited to anything anymore – not even the CMAs! The country world disowned her, then her label dropped her. She says she’s a victim, but a victim of what?” the insider says.
Rimes stopped by Katie Couric last week to talk about her rehab stint but, as it happens, she refused to talk about the reason she was there.