Tabloid headlines don’t define Miranda Lambert: It’s her music

We all know the Miranda Lambert from the tabloids.

She’s the one who’s an anorexic alcoholic who’s pregnant with twins, which she’d better deliver quick and shed the weight because that’s about the only way she’s going to keep her man.

Lambert, who will perform at Intrust Bank Arena on Saturday night, has laughed off many of those headlines in interviews – and on her Twitter account, where she and her “man,” music/television star Blake Shelton, her husband of four years, often sarcastically lash back at those headlines.

She’s even addressed the unwanted attention she and her marriage get in a song on her latest album, “Platinum,” which was released last summer.

Lambert didn’t write “Priscilla.” It was written for her by a trio of seasoned Nashville writers, one of whom was friend Natalie Hemby. Hemby once asked Lambert how she dealt with all the hurtful headlines.

The resulting song is about a couple whose marriage is viewed in a tabloid fishbowl – Priscilla and Elvis Presley. Lambert has said in interviews that the lyrics spoke to her.

“We look we got it made, don’t we?

Permanent accessory

On their arms and always on their minds

Rings, we gotta wear the real big rings

Big smiles like figurines”

Being famous means dealing with headlines. Being famous and married to someone else who’s famous means dealing with double the headlines.

But those who are paying attention to the Lambert on the stage and not the one in the magazines will note that she’s not exactly wilting under the weight of those headlines – or withering in the shadows of her famous husband.

During her career, which started with a third-place win on the CMT singing competition “Nashville Star” in 2003, Lambert has grown into a country megastar who now has shelves full of country music awards, five hit albums and a string of No. 1 hits on her resume.

She’s the unofficial Queen of Country Music, with a twangy tilt and purer country sound than many of her musical peers, including the pop-ish Carrie Underwood.

And fans seem drawn not only to stories about her marriage but also to the image she’s created of a small-town girl who hits it big, glams it up and doesn’t have time for anyone’s garbage. That image was perfectly on display during her rocking performance of “Little Red Wagon” at last month’s Grammy Awards. Dressed in black leather, Lambert belted out the playful lyrics accompanied by drums, electric guitar and a whole lot of pyrotechnics.

She and rock band AC/DC delivered the only two non-sleep-inducing performances of the night. And speaking of Grammy Awards, she won another that night. Her fifth album, “Platinum,” was named Best Country Album.

This is not Lambert’s first visit to Wichita. She was actually the second performer ever to appear on the Intrust Bank Arena stage. On opening night in January 2010, she was the second of two warm-up acts for inaugural headliner Brad Paisley. She had her spunky stage presence but hadn’t yet graduated from blue jeans, boots and a simple acoustic guitar.

Three weeks later, she’d win her first Grammy.

When she returned to Wichita 2012, Lambert was the headliner, and it was evident her sparkly star had risen much higher. She had a pink guitar, a shimmering tank top and a whole new album of hits to draw from. Though she had to halt her concert temporarily in the middle because of a tornado warning in the area, she returned almost immediately, telling the crowd, “If we’re going to go down, we’ll all go down together.”

The Lambert that Wichita will see on Saturday is a four-time consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year winner at the Academy of Country Music Awards and recently set a record at the Country Music Association Awards for taking that same title for a fifth consecutive time. She’s come into her own, turning out five albums worth of cheeky girl power hits that lend to colorful videos, and super twangy serious songs about heartbreak cheatin’ and wishin’ things were still like they were back then.

But things aren’t like they were back then for Lambert, and because of the headlines she inspires with her mega-stardom and tabloid-magnet marriage, they likely never will be again.

Fortunately, she’s pretty good at turning those headlines into hit songs.

This story was originally published February 27, 2015 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Tabloid headlines don’t define Miranda Lambert: It’s her music."