Miranda Lambert is an icon of modern country music.
But beneath all that charisma and talent, not to mention all those CMA Awards, lies
something a little darker than her charming smile lets on.
Here's the shady side of Miranda Lambert.
"It gets me in trouble sometimes, but I just feel like that's how God made me."
Did she steal a married man?
In April 2018, Us Weekly reported that Lambert had ended her romance with country singer
Anderson East, saying the split was amicable.
But a source told InTouch that Lambert was quote "devastated" by the breakup and "didn't
see it coming."
Still, just two weeks later, rumors surfaced that Lambert was allegedly dating Turnpike
Troubadours frontman Evan Felker…who just so happened to be a married man.
Felker's band was opening for Lambert's Livin' Like Hippies Tour, which began in January
2018.
Us Weekly reported that Felker filed for divorce from his wife of two years just weeks after
his tour with Lambert began.
A rumored cheater
Lambert's split from Anderson East wasn't made public until months after her tour actually
launched.
And some sources allege that's not a coincidence.
"I don't know what you can do these days without…some angle will try to tear you down."
An insider told Us Weekly that Lambert and East were technically still a couple when
she started hooking up with Felker, explaining that things had quote "just happened" between
them on tour, during songwriting sessions.
In fact, when the couple first started spending time together, a witness, who saw them brunching
in public, told Radar Online that they believed Lambert was actually out with East, not Felker,
because she was being so obviously romantic.
Even Felker's father-in-law at the time hinted that Lambert may have cheated on East.
He told Radar Online,
"I don't like to spread rumors, but I'd say you're on the right track."
Did she step out on Blake?
Though country music star Blake Shelton never outright said that his marriage to Lambert
ended due to infidelity, he hinted at it in his song, "She's Got a Way with Words."
He also tweeted after Lambert's affair with Felker went public:
"Been taking the high road for a long time…I almost gave up!
But I can finally see something on the horizon up there!!
Wait!!
Could it be?!
Yep!!
It's karma!!"
Sources told OK! magazine that Lambert had several quote "dalliances" during her marriage
to Shelton, including an alleged fling with married baseball player Josh Beckett, but
it was her rumored coziness with her married tour manager, Ryan Westbrook, that supposedly
sent Shelton over the edge.
Rumor has it her own bandmates were the ones who revealed the truth to Shelton, with a
source telling the outlet,
"He'd taken Miranda back time and time again, and he would have done it again had she owned
up to her mistakes and corrected them.
It was a crushing blow to Blake's ego."
Sources close to Lambert have consistently denied any rumored cheating, per Life & Style
magazine.
A messy hookup with Blake
Of course, Shelton's own karma may have come into play when his marriage to Lambert came
crashing down.
Because he reportedly met Lambert while he was married to his first wife in 2005.
Shelton later admitted on Behind the Music,
"I was a married guy, you know, standing up there going, 'Man, this shouldn't be happening.'
Looking back on that, I was falling in love with her right there onstage."
"Something just happened and I think we both knew it."
Lambert also told Dateline that she knew Shelton was married and that pursuing a relationship
with him was wrong, but she did it anyway.
Lambert's own ex, Jeff Allen, called Shelton out for his apparent hypocrisy concerning
the "karma" tweet.
In a since-deleted tweet of his own, Allen wrote to Shelton,
"You know, I've always given you the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to just being
human, but you must be one arrogant SOB to pop off something like this, when I know damn
good and well you were cheating on your wife and Miranda was cheating on me when you two
started up."
Abusing her star power
Sources close to Felker claim Lambert wooed him with her fame as the queen of country
music.
"When you finally get to a place in your career where people are paying attention, you know,
you have to decide what you wanna use your platform for."
An insider told People that before leaving for their tour together, Lambert and Felker
began texting.
Allegedly, the friendly and professional messages quickly grew increasingly flirtatious as the
tour approached.
A source claimed,
"He knew it was flirty and crossed a line with [his wife].
He showed her the whole thing and felt bad about it…He was like, 'I don't want to blow
her off because this is the kind of money that can change our grandkids' lives if I'm
able to write with this person.'"
Sources claimed Lambert dropped hints at hooking up with Felker on social media, posting photos
of his favorite beer, before reports of their romance went public.
But Felker wasn't the only man allegedly blinded by Lambert's success.
A source told InTouch that it wasn't lost on East that he was launched into the quote
"musical A-list" once he and Lambert went public.
Sorry not sorry
Sources close to Lambert have insisted she did nothing inappropriate with Felker and
was not responsible for his split from his wife, having apparently been under the impression
that their marriage was already over before she set her sights on him.
A source even told Hollywood Life that Lambert generally has a quote "all's fair in love
and war" type attitude, so she seized the opportunity to connect with Felker when it
presented itself.
"I was hoping they would, like, play a George Strait song and we could like two step to
it."
But others alleged that Lambert had been deliberate in her pursuit of married men.
A source told Us Weekly that this is a quote "pattern for her," while another insider claimed
she has issues staying faithful to anyone with whom she's in a relationship, adding,
"Miranda is insecure and has too many 'yes' people in her life.
She does this to herself.
The people around her don't feel bad anymore."
Playing the victim
Perhaps a large reason why Lambert's sketchy love life has gone relatively unnoticed is
because her breakup songs, which often paint her as being wronged, scorned, and heartbroken,
are just so good that you can't imagine they'd be portraying a false narrative.
When she won the 2018 CMA Award for song of the year for the heart-wrenching "Tin Man,"
she thanked the audience for quote, "sharing [her] broken heart."
Following her divorce from Shelton, she made cryptic social media posts about her alleged
"heartache," but didn't appear to actively court press nearly as much as Shelton.
But Lambert did go on to lament to Cosmo,
"We were together for 10 years, married for four, were very quickly divorced, and are
friends.
I'm still processing everything and figuring out where to go and what happened."
A source told Life & Style,
"Blake was always made out to be the bad guy after he filed for divorce and sent Miranda
packing from Oklahoma.
[Lambert] played the victim."
"Whether it's good or bad, ugly, everything, you know…I just kinda spill my guts."
Manipulating her peers
While her personal life might seem like a bit of a mess, these days, Lambert is hugely
successful and acclaimed in her career.
But in her past, there have been rumors about conflict with fellow country star Kacey Musgraves
over Lambert's hit song, "Mama's Broken Heart."
Musgraves reportedly wrote the track and was reluctant to sell it to any other artist to
record.
In January 2013, Lambert, who grew up with Musgraves in Texas, told The Boot,
"We used to write together a lot and kind of went our separate ways.
I don't think I was supposed to be pitched ['Mama's Broken Heart'].
But [then], her sister actually shot some pictures at mine and Blake's wedding, and
[Kacey] was there, too.
At our rehearsal dinner, I went over and asked her, 'Are you gonna cut this song or can I
have it?'
And she was like, 'I'll think about it for a couple of days.'"
Musgraves eventually gave in, with the provision that she would sing harmony on the tune.
However, according to The Fader, based on some perceived shade Musgraves has thrown
Lambert's way since, it seems like Musgraves may have been really reluctant to give up
such a massive hit.
Shading Garth Brooks
In 2017, country music legend Garth Brooks lip synced his performance at the CMA's.
Brooks had previously performed 12 shows in 10 days before the awards show, telling press
backstage that his voice quote "wasn't there anymore" at showtime, and that they did a
"game-day call" on whether to cancel, sing, or lip-sync.
But that wasn't good enough for Lambert's then-boyfriend, Anderson East, who wrote on
Instagram:
"I keep a lot of my opinions to myself and respect anyone making music but as a person
who tries to put on the best and most honest show I can night after night…this truly
offends me.
I was told country music is three chords and the truth."
Lambert chimed in, too, writing,
"High five on this babe.
If you can't sing then don't.
It's better to be honest than to pretend."
But Lambert's comment must have felt like a slap in the face to Brooks, who had previously
given her a sweet shout-out backstage, telling the press:
"Let me tell you who fought the good fight tonight, in my opinion.
Miranda Lambert.
She is one of the few females that we play, so you think she'd want to play it safe.
She stuck country music in all of our faces tonight.
Traditional country music.
So she's fighting the good fight."
Stealing from her hero
Lambert's breakout hit was the 2005 barn burner "Kerosene," a breakup anthem that blasted
up the charts.
Though most of her lyrics were original, the music, down to a harmonica break and even
some of the ad-libbed moments, were almost identical to Steve Earle's 1996 track "I Feel
Alright."
When it was brought to Lambert's attention, by the press and the public, but not by Earle
himself, she was quick to add a credit for Earle as a co-writer on the song, which entitled
him to half the hit's royalties.
He later told Rolling Stone,
"I hadn't even heard it, and I felt bad telling her that I never would have done anything
about it either if I'd known, because I don't do s--- like that.
I've been sued enough, mainly divorces, so I don't particularly care to be involved in
that myself."
Lambert and Earle, who she has called one of her heroes, eventually collaborated on
the duet "This is How it Ends."
"We wrote it, it's a duet, and it's pretty f---in' strong."
In it for the chase
Lambert and Evan Felker split in August 2018.
And Felker had finalized his divorce from his ex wife that same month.
But after the breakup, Felker wasn't just out of a wife and a girlfriend, he was also
out of a touring gig.
His career with the Turnpike Troubadours has suffered since then, with the band announcing
an indefinite hiatus in October 2018, according to Rolling Stone.
For her part, Lambert appeared largely unbothered with the split, telling The Tennessean that
she was quote "happily single."
"I'm sorta good for now."
She told the outlet,
"Love is a hard road sometimes and it's been a roller-coaster ride for me, but I'm definitely
thankful for all the ups and downs because I've had some really good songs come out of
it.
You've got to take the bad parts and put them on paper and then move on to the happy parts."
Marrying an alleged cheater
Lambert rebounded relatively quickly from Felker with NYPD officer Brendan McLoughlin.
According to People magazine, the couple reportedly met in November 2018 during Lambert's appearance
on Good Morning America in Times Square, where McLoughlin often worked.
They supposedly began dating almost immediately and secretly tied the knot in January 2019,
with a source claiming to Us Weekly that Lambert didn't give her ex, Blake Shelton, a heads
up, either.
Lambert announced the wedding news that February.
"How did you keep it a secret from everybody?"
"I just am good like that."
But Lambert might want to have considered McLoughlin's allegedly shady past.
Us Weekly reports that McLoughlin was once engaged to a woman named Jackie Bruno, who
went overseas to play soccer.
When Bruno returned, she reportedly learned that McLoughlin had cheated and gotten another
woman pregnant.
According to Radar Online, that other woman and McLoughlin welcomed their first child
just days after he met Lambert.
Meanwhile, Lambert is enjoying her new role as stepmom, and has a pretty interesting perspective
on the whole situation.
In June 2019, she gushed to Extra of her time with her husband's son:
"I'm loving that whole phase, and I've raised a million dogs, so I feel like I've got that
part of my womanly/motherly thing full, so this is a whole new journey.
It's great."
"Anyone that can accept eight dogs, four cats, five horses, two mini horses, is a good guy.
He loves all of us as a unit."
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