Wife of LeAnn Rimes' Reputed Lover Calls Country Singer a 'Stalker'

Eddie Cibrian's wife says Rimes won't leave her husband alone.

ByABC News
March 19, 2009, 4:19 PM

June 3, 2009 — -- Months after the premiere of LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian's steamy Lifetime movie, Cibrian's wife is finally speaking out, and she doesn't have kind things to say about the country singer/actress.

"LeAnn is a stalker," Brandi Glanville told Us Weekly magazine, about her husband's reputed lover. "She refuses to leave us alone -- it is shameful and scary. People are going to say it takes two to tango, and I get that, but at some point LeAnn needs to stop asking him to dance."

Glanville claims that Rimes, who is married to aspiring songwriter Dean Sheremet, showed up at an L.A. Lakers game Cibrian attended May 17, weeks after he'd changed his phone number to end Rimes' "constant texting and calling."

Rimes' motive, according to Glanville? Publicity.

"LeAnn is so desperate for fame she has left her self-respect in the gutter and doesn't care who she hurts to get what she wants," the model and mother of two young boys told Us. "She's hurting my family and messing with the wrong mom."

Rimes' representative didn't immediately return requests for comment. Her last major public appearance was at the MTV Movie Awards Sunday, where she performed.

The country music prodigy's personal life gained attention in March when Us Weekly reported that she was having an affair with Cibrian, 35, her co-star in the Lifetime movie "Northern Lights," which premiered later that month.

The magazine devoted a cover story to the 26-year-old's reported infidelities, citing security camera images of Rimes and Cibrian kissing during an intimate dinner and photographs of them arriving at and leaving an exclusive Beverly Hills hotel, where they apparently had a four-hour rendezvous.

"She is having an affair," senior editor Ian Drew told ABCNews.com at the time. "It's not even a joke or speculation or from a shady source."

But why put Rimes, whose biggest hit "How Do I Live" was back in 1997, and who has been overshadowed by current country-music princesses Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood, on the cover?

"Everyone thought she had this perfect marriage, she always had such a perfect reputation," Drew said. "It's just a surprise to everyone."

After the story of their reputed affair broke, Cibrian released the following statement to reporters:

"Other than being friends and two actors who were romantically intertwined in a movie-for-television we filmed last fall, there is no truth to the reporting initiated by Us magazine. It is a fabricated story that is using random snapshots as connective tissue to create a scandalous relationship."

Eddie Cibrian with wife Brandi Glanville.

Rimes and Cibrian, who has appeared in episodes of "Samantha Who?" and "Ugly Betty," first met on the set of their television drama "Northern Lights," in which she starred as an Alaskan bush pilot who fell for the new detective in town, played by Cibrian. Through the shoot, which included some steamy love scenes, they became close.

The director Mike Robe told Us: "From the moment we rehearsed, LeAnn and Eddie honestly developed a really strong bond and a warm relationship. I could sense a lot of trust that grew between them. Once I yelled 'cut,' they did have a rapport. They became very good friends."

Various media reports say Rimes' marriage has been in trouble for some time, a product of getting married too young. Rimes wed former backup dancer Sheremet when she was 19.

A friend of the couple told People magazine: "Like any marriage, they've had a couple of rough patches. They've gone to therapy. But they did marry very young and when people marry young it's very difficult to maintain a marriage for the long haul."