She’s been in showbusiness for nearly 30 years, but there’s one thing LeAnn Rimes still gets nervous about: other people singing her songs.
“I’m always like, ‘This is going to go one way or the other,’” the singer – famous for hits such as “Can’t Fight The Moonlight”, “Blue” and “Life Goes On” – tells TV WEEK.
But it’s something the 41-year-old has had to get used to, especially after appearing as a coach on The Voice UK and now The Voice in Australia.
“A girl who ended up on my team [in Australia] sang one of my songs. She was 16, super-young and so cute. I felt so protective of her,” LeAnn says.
“But then over in the UK, I had someone sing ‘How Do I Live’ and that didn’t go so well. I ended up getting up on stage with him, because I’m like, ‘Maybe if I get up with him, and we can sing it together, it’ll get better…’”
It’s this desire to help new talent that perhaps earned her a spot on the Aussie version of The Voice. LeAnn says it was probably born from her experiences coming up through the ranks of the music industry when she was just 13.
“I didn’t really have a mentor,” she says. “I was young and had people who were protective of me, but I never had that person I could call upon all the time. It was kind of lonely being a kid in this industry. Only in the past five or six years did I feel I actually had peers.”
It’s safe to say she’s picked up three new peers on The Voice, with the songstress declaring she had a blast filming alongside Guy Sebastian, Kate Miller-Heidke and Adam Lambert – when they weren’t competing for artists, that is.
“Kate is feisty,” she says of the Australian singer-songwriter’s competitive nature. “And I think Guy is very covert in the way he plays the game. He always likes to get the family involved. He talks a lot too – Guy’s very long-winded. [Laughs]
“Adam, meanwhile, likes to throw things. He likes to throw his massive shoes at people. Have you seen his shoes? They weigh a ton – I think he cracked the stage the other day.”
While some tactics work better than others, LeAnn says she prefers to just “speak from the heart”.
“I have no game in that way,” she says. “I don’t think. I’m just like, ‘Hey, I like you – would you want to come on Team LeAnn?’”
And for the contestants who do secure a spot on her team, the singer reveals they’ve earned themselves a lot more than just singing lessons from her.
“Most of the time, I’m a therapist,” she says with a laugh. “Honestly, I’ve had a lot of therapy with my team. I feel like they’re my children. I’m very empathetic and have been in this business for so long now. I always say I wish I could give them each a piece of me. I love them all.”
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