LeAnn Rimes' ex-husband believes divorcing him was the biggest career mistake she's ever made.
The 32-year-old singer's marriage to Dean Sheremet ended after she had an affair with her now spouse Eddie Cibrian.
LeAnn and Dean got together when they were 18 and 20 respectively and married not long after. As she was already so well known Dean's career took a backseat, with him instead focusing on ensuring she stayed in the limelight. He did a good job of that, but later realised it hadn't made him completely happy.
"As it went on, there were a lot of animosities that built up. I felt like I was never having my needs met so there was fighting. And I was so intertwined in managing her career that I didn’t know how to make the distinction between husband and boss, husband and partner, husband and manager…" he told natsnextadventure.com.
"[At first] it felt like we were a team. As it went on, the team became toxic. But when we were working together, we were brilliant. The dumbest thing she ever did for her career was divorce me. Because we were such a good team. The last hit song she had was when she was with me."
There were other things which Dean struggled with too. One of those was LeAnn's attitude to money, with the 34-year-old claiming his ex never considered the price when she was splashing out which made him feel uncomfortable.
LeAnn and Eddie met when they were shooting a TV movie called Northern Lights, and it was Dean who said she should take the role. He suggests she was initially "ambivalent" towards it, but he pushed her because he saw it as a way to test whether she really wanted to get into acting.
"Never in a million years did I think something like that would have happened. The need for me in her life was so strong. There were things she couldn’t do without me. She had her own phone but never used it. People would call me to get to her. Everything went through me," Dean explained.
He also opened up about Eddie and appears to still be surprised that LeAnn had an affair. He doesn't have kind words for her husband, although Dean has moved on and is now married to Sarah Silver.
"He was a good looking guy. I just remember being like, 'Oh, God, just another one of those Hollywood pretty boys.' If you’re in a room with him, he’s probably one of the most charming people you’ll ever meet. But I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw this f**king table… he just felt like one of those guys from the beginning. A total schmoozer. Very Hollywood. I never bought his schtick. But I wasn’t worried," he added,
"The hardest part was someone standing in the back of the bus in the middle of nowhere and saying, 'I don’t love you anymore.' I would’ve rather she said, 'I slept with 20 guys.'"
