LeAnn Rimes Is in Her FREEDOM ERA

The Grammy-winning superstar tells Us about having to hit rock bottom to get better. Now she's at her very best- and only getting started

- BY YANA GREBENYUK

Not everyone who's worked in show business for 30 years comes out the other side.

LeAnn Rimes has emerged triumphantly, but that doesn't mean life has always been easy. Since careening into the country music industry as a kid — she won two Grammys at just 14 — the Texas native has charted her own course to success through myriad ups and downs. At 43, she's happily thriving and still evolving.

“Everybody wanted to keep me this little girl forever, and that was just not possible,” Rimes tells Us in an exclusive interview ahead of the premiere of her new TV show, 9-1-1: Nashville, out Oct. 9. (In June, she also released the single “What Mattered Most” with Ty Herndon.) “For so long, I was afraid of all of these different aspects of myself because we're told not to allow that out.” Now, she says, “I'm not afraid of myself any longer.”

With support from loved ones — including her actor husband, Eddie Cibrian, whom she wed in 2011 — Rimes has come to embody the word “resilience,” and it's on full display whether she's performing or sharing an unfiltered look into her private health battles. “The best gift I've ever been given is to be an artist,” she says. “To have been as successful as I've been for as long as I've been, I don't take that for granted.” She tells Us more about her career evolution, finding autonomy and looking ahead to the next chapter.

How would you describe this era of LeAnn Rimes?