Country
Why did Lainey Wilson seek advice from Reba McEntire?
Lainey Wilson has revealed that she turned to fellow country star Reba McEntire for advice after struggling to acclimatise to being in the spotlight.
Lainey Wilson asked Reba McEntire for advice on getting to grips with being famous.
The 33-year-old country singer struggled to cope with her sudden rise to stardom and turned to one of her music heroes for some much-needed advice.
In her new Netflix documentary, Lainey Wilson: Keepin’ Country Cool, she recalls: "I said, 'This is a loaded question, but what do you do when you feel like you can't go any further?' And she said, 'I do it for somebody else.'"
Lainey admits that Reba's words struck a chord with her.
She said: "That right there has put so much in perspective for me. I get on that stage and I do it for other people."
At the height of her struggles, Lainey struggled to see a way past her anxiety and depression.
The Things a Man Oughta Know artist said: "I had … several breakdowns, I guess you could say. I was just losing it. I was like, 'I don't know if I can, like, go any further.'"
Lainey admits that she was "spiralling out of control" before Reba stepped in.
She said: "It was terrifying. It was a chemical imbalance happening.
"I was, like, spiralling out of control. And then it's the fear of thinking that you're always gonna be stuck in that mindset. It causes more anxiety. It's just, like, a vicious cycle."
Lainey previously claimed that she's become "thicker-skinned" since finding fame.
The singer admitted that she's been forced to toughen up in order to cope with the demands of being in the spotlight.
She told Us Weekly: "I’ve definitely become thicker-skinned, which I’m proud of, because for a minute, I did let it get to me.
"I’m human and I’m a songwriter. I think words are powerful - that’s why I started writing songs to begin with."
Lainey has had to learn how to cope with external criticism of herself and her music.
The Watermelon Moonshine singer shared: "You’ll read something negative and it kind of pings your heart for a minute. You have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and keep on going."
Lainey has more than four million followers on Instagram and she's "learned [her] lesson" about reading the comments on her social media posts.
She explained: "You’ll look at a hundred positive [ones] and then you see that one negative, and that’s the one that you’re gonna hold onto."
