LeAnn Rimes has often been quite willing to share details of her life with her fans, and in 2020 she opened up about her ongoing battle against the skin condition psoriasis in a big way: by sharing nude photos that detail her current outbreak.
The photos were posted as part of a lengthy essay that LeAnn wrote for Glamour in honor of World Psoriasis Day. Psoriasis is a condition that causes patches of the skin to form scales and become quite itchy, and breakouts are often caused by illnesses or stress.
LeAnn writes that she was only 2 when she was diagnosed.
"I was only two years old when I was diagnosed with psoriasis. By the time I was six, about 80% of my body was covered in painful red spots—everything but my hands, feet, and face," she says. "These weren't the days when there were commercials about psoriasis on TV or open discussions about skin conditions. No one was talking about this."
She also shares that she did everything she could to hide the condition from her fans while performing:
"I tried everything I could to treat it: steroid creams, major medications — I even tried being wrapped in coal tar with Saran Wrap. And when I was in public, I did I everything I could to hide it. Onstage I'd often wear two pairs of pantyhose or jeans — even in 95-degree heat. Underneath my shirt, my whole stomach would be covered in thick scales that would hurt and bleed."
Luckily, when she was in her 20s, she found a treatment that worked well for her, and she started using it regularly. It worked so well she was even able to taper off a few years ago:
"Finally in my 20s, I found a treatment that seemed to help keep my skin clear. As my condition improved, I stretched out the amount of time between each of my shots until I felt at ease going off them two and a half years ago."
Unfortunately, then 2020 happened.
"And then the beginning of this year happened," LeAnn says. "All h*ll broke loose in the world — and inside of me, as I'm sure it did for so many other people amid this pandemic. Suddenly I went from doing what I love, and being surrounded by people, to just hanging around the house in sweats. Stress is a common trigger for psoriasis, and with so much uncertainty happening, my flare-ups came right back."
While she's shared her experience with the condition before, she notes that this time feels different to her:
"This time is different. Even though I've opened up, I've still kept hidden. And when you're hiding your physical body, there's so much that rolls over into your emotional and spiritual mental health. You feel like you're holding yourself back — like you've been caged in."
But now, she says that she's tired of hiding herself:
"Maybe it's the fact that this year has really put things into perspective, but I now feel like I'm at a point in my life where I just want to break out of that cage. We're at a moment in time right now when we're all being stripped of everything we thought we needed — and now we can see how worthy and good enough we are without all of the [expletive]. We're worthy without the makeup and the artifice. We're worthy of love without having to work for it."
She also feels that opening up about her struggle with the condition has caused a ripple effect throughout other parts of her life:
"So much of my journey — both personally and in my new chant record and podcast coming out — has been excavating these pieces that I've been hiding. To allow them out and let those fragments come back into wholeness. Music has been my gift, and why I'm here. But I want to give a voice to these other pieces of me. And I want to give a voice to what so many other people are going through. This is finally my time to be honest about what psoriasis is and what it looks like."
So that's why she decided to share these intimate photos of what her skin looks like right now.
"You know when you say something you've been holding in for so long, and it's such a sigh of relief?" she explains. "That's what these photos are to me. I needed this. My whole body — my mind, my spirit — needed this desperately. I honestly thought these photos were going to be challenging to look at."
"It's one thing to see yourself and judge yourself in the mirror," LeAnn continues. "I thought it would be even harder in a photo, which is why in the past I never let people take pictures of me during flare-ups. Being in our own bodies, we judge ourselves so harshly. But when I look at these photos, I see so much more than my skin."
"Will these photos change the way I live? Will I wear shorts out to the grocery store? I honestly don't know. But what I do know is that it's amazing how small we can keep ourselves. When you finally allow yourself to step outside of what you've been caging in, the whole world opens up. There's freedom in even just putting one foot outside the door."
LeAnn concludes her essay by wishing the readers of it well:
"I hope anyone who also kept themselves small has the courage to step outside of that cage. When we allow ourselves not to be held in, our lives come back to us."
