LeAnn Rimes, Eddie Cibrian Open Up on Love ‘in the Spotlight’

LeAnn Rimes and actor Eddie Cibrian sat down for their first network interview as a couple Wednesday night on ABC's 'In the Spotlight With Robin Roberts.' Sitting in their Los Angeles home, the couple spoke candidly about the backlash from their affair, as well as other tough issues LeAnn has faced in her 15 year career as a country music star. Here are the highlights from their tell-all interview with Robin Roberts:



LeAnn on cheating on her then-husband, Dean Sheremet: "That's just not me. What happened is not who I am, period. But I do know how much I love [Eddie]. So I've always said I don't live my life with regret. I can't."

LeAnn on the tabloid headline that hurt the most: "I think the one that said I was a stalker. I was like, 'Really?' [laughs] It was shocking."

LeAnn on the media flack over her affair: "I can't change their minds. Nothing I can say is going to change it. I do know that, and I've accepted that. It happens every day to so many people. And if I take away my album sales [and] my words, you have just another couple. You had two couples whose marriages didn't work who really stumbled upon each other and fell in love. Never ever was I thinking of hurting someone."

Eddie on the qualities which first attracted him to LeAnn: "What first struck me about her was that she just has this incredible passion ... passion for life, for things, for music, for art, and [her] incredible, kind heart. You would think that somebody who grew up at a very young age with incredible success that it would affect her, and it hasn't. She's a normal, down-to-earth woman."

Eddie on what he wishes people would understand: "The truth is that we're human beings. We make mistakes and we learn from them, but we're human. We fell in love. We're talking about something that's over a year or a year and-a-half old, really. We're still together, and we're madly in love. And I think people are finally seeing that, but it doesn't mean that people will accept it or the tabloids will stop trying to print lies and try to tear us apart."

LeAnn on what she wishes people would understand: "We're really happy in what we feel privately. We hope [that] one day, I think people will feel publicly."

LeAnn on life as a child-star: "I was doing two shows a day at times. From the time I was 13 til 16 and-a-half ... I was like, 'I'm done; I can't do this right now,' [but] that was my life. I'm learning who I am without it and that's the coolest thing about my life right now, that I have all of these incredible things happening, and I have family and I'm learning who I am without it. There's been a lot thrust on my shoulders at a very young age. I thank God. I don't know how I could have handled it, but I have, and I'm still here. And that's saying a lot, you know?"

LeAnn on her medical battle with the skin disease, psoriasis: "It was really discouraging because nothing really worked. Kids would look at me strange. Oddly enough, then all of a sudden I had to be in the public eye in front of millions of people at 13. "

LeAnn on her relationship with her father after suing him 12 years ago: "My dad and I have an amazing relationship now. We've both healed in so many ways. Maybe my dad has learned that I needed to get out from under it ... for me to break away from my parents. In some crazy, messed up way, that was part of it."