LeAnn Rimes Reveals Story Behind ‘Borrowed’ Duet

LeAnn Rimes and Stevie Nicks made musical magic together with their duet of “Borrowed.” The song originally appeared on Rimes’ 2013 Spitfire album, before she included the new version on her recent Re-Imagined album.

The song, which begins, “I know you’re not mine, only borrowed / ‘Cause you already belong to her, at least you said so / But I’m starting to believe it ain’t the whole truth / ‘Cause when we’re lying side by side, I get the whole you,” was inspired by Rimes’ relationship with her current husband, Eddie Cibrian, while he was still married to Brandi Glanville.

But it was an encounter on an airplane when Rimes had the idea for the song, thanks to an unlikely meeting with a stranger. After watching a woman read a tabloid with Rimes’ face on the cover, the singer began to cry, and was quickly comforted by the woman’s husband.

“I honestly feel like that guy was an angel,” Rimes tells Billboard. “Some things came over me at that moment and I just remember thinking that title [‘Borrowed’] to myself.”

“It’s a very honest, authentic moment and capturing a piece of me that I really didn’t know existed until I wrote this song,” she adds.

Nicks didn’t write the song with Rimes, but she empathized with the emotions behind it.

“It was very easy for me to try to be in that same sad, deeply tragic, passionate place where she was when she wrote that song because I had been there,” says the 70-year-old. “I had lived there for a long time.”

Nicks might have decades more experience than Rimes, but the rock icon insists Rimes kept her on her toes.

“She doesn’t brush over anything,” boasts Nicks. “You have to sing every single word with her; otherwise it won’t be a good duet because she would leave you in the dust.”

Rimes might be happily married to Cibrian, but she isn’t about to make excuses for the affair. The 35-year-old admits she isn’t proud of her actions that led to the demise of both Cibrian’s marriage, and her marriage to her first husband, Dean Sheremet.

“I actually still get embarrassed talking about it, even though I’ve written a whole album about the situation,” acknowledges Rimes (quote via Taste of Country). I did go through a very public affair with Eddie, who’s now my wonderful husband. People who haven’t been in that situation, I guess, look into the darker moments of things. I think a lot of people think it’s done with complete abandonment and it wasn’t.”

Download “Borrowed” on iTunes.

Photo Credit: Getty images/ Roy Rochlin