Why Is LeAnn Rimes Still Famous, Anyway?

She hasn't done much for us lately, but you'd think she was the biggest A-lister on Earth from the way the media keeps reporting on her. Here's why

All this obsession about LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian: Why is she even still famous, anyway?
—TellTill48, via the inbox

Because she wants to be. Desperately. Her tweets are the equivalent of military-grade sleep deprivation techniques. As soon as we start to slip into Rimes-free bliss, she zaps us with another thousand-watt update about how she's on a plane eating an omelet.

Still—and I hate to tell you this—overall, this is not the peak of Rimes' fame. In fact, it's more like the eye in a LeAnn fame cyclone:

And we're about to step back into the full-scale Rimes hurricane.

The first half of Rimes' latest fame tsunami struck between 2005 and 2007, when Rimes released three albums in a row.

Two of the three were certified gold, and the latest garnered Rimes several award nominations. All of that, plus Rimes' infamous 2009 Lifetime movie Northern Lights—the project that ignited her affair with Cibrian—fueled her recognition until now.

Meanwhile, a second wave of Rimes starts in March, when she's expected to release her next album, Lady and Gentlemen. She's making it out to be a very big deal, promising a re-recording of her breakthrough hit "Blue" (which rocketed her to fame when she was only 13) and saying she wants the whole collection to be perfect before it's finally released.

At some point, probably this year, Rimes also is going to get married to Cibrian, with all the overheated tabloid panting that entails.

Add all that up, and the horror hits you: All the current noise about Rimes? The coverage that's happening right now?

It's actually a lull, a respite that probably feels more intense than it should be thanks to Rimes herself, who has been known to tweet—no exaggeration—more than 20 times in an hour.