LeAnn Rimes is not going to let a little something like her teeth falling out in the middle of a song stop her from performing.
The country music star laughed as she shared in an Instagram video on June 21 how she overcame a dental malfunction onstage at a recent concert. (There’s profanity in the video.)
“This is the most epic example of how the show must go on,” Rimes said. “So, last night, I was onstage, and in the middle of ‘One Way Ticket,’ I feel something pop in my mouth. And if you’ve been around, you know I’ve had a lot of dental surgeries, and I have a bridge in the front, and it fell out in the middle of my song last night.”
Despite losing her teeth, she found a way to literally pull it together.
“I panicked in the middle and said ‘hold on’ and ran to the side of the stage and put it back in — like, popped it back in — and then just went on singing,” she said.
Rimes, 42, informed the crowd about what she was battling up there.
“Then I just had to get real with everybody and tell them exactly what was happening, or else I would have had to walk offstage,” Rimes said. “For the rest of the show, I was literally like this, pushing my teeth in, like, every couple lines and singing.”
Rimes joked that it never occurred to her how difficult her song catalog would be to sing with her teeth sliding around.
“I never knew how many ‘f’s and ‘th’s’ and ‘sh’s’ that I have in my songs, especially ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight,'” she said. “Like ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight,’ they completely fell out of my mouth.”
For a Grammy-winning performer who has seen it all since she became a star as a 13-year-old, it was a night she won’t forget.
“It was the most epic experience ever,” she said. “I don’t usually have firsts in my career. That was a first and hopefully a last.”
“The front row: Get ready for something to fly out,” she added, referencing her next show. “If you catch them, please return them.”
Rimes said she “just ran with it” because there was nothing she could do “except either walk off or just hold my teeth in and sing.”
She shared her experience in solidarity with other performers who may endure mishaps onstage.
“In case, you know, anybody has an issue onstage ever and feels embarrassed by it, just watch this video again and it’ll remind you that the show can go on, even in the midst of sheer utter embarrassment,” she said. “You’ve just got to be real with people.”
Rimes later shared a comment from a fan on her Instagram stories that she called “one of the funniest things ever written about me.”
“Now, most folks would’ve panicked, mumbled some excuse, and sprinted backstage faster than you can say ‘veneers,'” the comment reads. “Not LeAnn. The woman stopped mid-song, ran to the side of the stage, shoved her damn teeth back in like a rodeo queen with somewhere to be, and kept singing like nothing happened. That’s not just professionalism. That’s outlaw country toughness in a sequin dress.”
As for her teeth, they appear to be firmly secured.
“It’s all good,” Rimes said in her video. “They’re in for now.”
