
She’s been through the mill a bit the last few years, LeAnn
Rimes has. After her extra-marital affair, divorce, re-marriage, and battles
with her new husband’s ex-wife have been played out very publicly in the media
(including on the show the latter is a star of, The Real Housewives of Beverly
Hills), you’d think that no more drama would come to her and she’d fade from
the press a little. But perhaps her time in the negative spotlight hasn’t faded
just yet.
On Wednesday LeAnn performed on The X Factor USA with Carly
Rose, a 13-year-old contestant with a big voice. The performance was a sham
from start to finish, if I’m honest. LeAnn came on (a little wobbly), grinning,
and while Carly seemed to have done okay with the song before LeAnn arrived,
both were honestly shocking after her appearance. Vocals were out of key,
timing was over-played with, harmonies were horrible and nobody seemed to know
when they were coming in. Both were attempting to improvise and they didn’t
even seem to have met yet. It was generally a shambles and when I heard it I
wanted to turn it off because the singing (from both) was that bad, While you
could argue that Carly is only 13 and that exempts her, I would say why is she
in this competition? I think it’s ridiculous to allow children under the age of
16 to participate, they are not emotionally ready for such a hard career (cause
it’s hard graft you know), they need to finish school and it’s overall a bad
idea because they are children and we’ve all seen what happens to child stars!
You could argue that LeAnn being a child star hasn’t exactly
ensured a perfect upbringing, and she hasn’t been short of dramas in her life,
particularly as she had to book herself into rehab for stress recently. So that
brings me on to my next point. Many celebrities will have a shot of whiskey or
something to calm their nerves before a performance. It’s standard practise for
some and we only have to look at people like Hank Williams and George Jones to
know that many musicians are alcoholics. People like Eric Church are regularly
drunk on stage. But that’s possibly not so much the issue here. I think there
has been a big reaction because LeAnn is female. It seems more uncouth in today’s
society still for women to be drunk. I think there is also the issue of LeAnn
singing with the girl. It was not her performance, and you could say that she
isn’t setting a very good example for such a young girl if she is drunk on
stage.
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