The Shady Side Of Miranda Lambert

Miranda Lambert is one of the queens of modern country music. She has an undeniable sass, doll-like looks, pipes for days, an endless well of charisma, and incredibly moving, empowering lyrics.

Aside from her stellar music career (and boy, is it stellar — she has more Academy of Country Music Awards on her mantle than anyone else in history), Lambert is an amazing lady who does lots of great things, including rescuing more than 100 lost and displaced pets from Hurricane Harvey with her MuttNation Foundation and calling out Chris Brown for assaulting Rihanna even after it seemed like a lot of the world had forgotten about the incident.

Still, there's a darker, stormier side to this songstress that's been well-hidden until somewhat recently. The private superstar hinted to Marie Claire back in December 2014 that she's "complicated" and "not all sunshine and roses." Get to know the shady side of Miranda Lambert.

Miranda Lambert may have wanted to watch out, because typically the old adage of "how you get 'em is how you lose 'em" rings true — and insiders claimed that Evan Felker straight-up ghosted his wife in favor of cavorting around with Lambert on tour.

A source told People that while Lambert denied being the reason for Felker's divorce, "The notion that [Felker and Nelson's] divorce happened for any reason other than that is complete bulls**t." The insider added that for the first two nights of the tour, Felker "was in love with his wife," but by the third night on the road, Felker emailed Nelson to tell her he wasn't coming home that week. The insider claimed that if it weren't for Lambert, he would still be very much smitten with Nelson, adding that he came clean about the relationship in March 2018.

Making matters worse, Felker allegedly ignored Nelson throughout the tour, despite reportedly trying to have a baby with her before he left. A source told Us Weekly that he wouldn't answer his wife's calls or messages, and that she found out he'd filed for divorce by reading a news report. In her response filing, obtained by Radar Online, Nelson cited "abandonment" as the reason for the split. Nelson remained quiet about the rumors involving Lambert, though she did post a sad selfie to social media, writing: "PSA: If Staci Felker can make it through this week, so can you."

Though country music star Blake Shelton never outright said that his marriage to Miranda Lambert ended due to infidelity, he hinted at it in his song, "She's Got a Way with Words," singing: "Little words like 'I' and 'do' / Lying, cheating, screwed / Yeah all the words I thought I knew / They got a brand new meaning now." He also tweeted after Lambert's love affair with Felker went public: "Been taking the high road for a long time ... I almost gave up! But I can finally see something on the horizon up there!! Wait!! Could it be?! Yep!! It's karma!!"

Despite Lambert shacking up with East shortly after her split from Shelton, reports suggested East wasn't the man with whom she allegedly cheated on Shelton. Sources told OK! magazine that Lambert had several "dalliances" during her marriage to Shelton (including an alleged fling with married baseball player Josh Beckett), but it was her rumored coziness with her married tour manager, Ryan Westbrook, that supposedly sent Shelton over the edge. Rumor has it her own bandmates revealed the truth to Shelton.

"He'd taken Miranda back time and time again, and he would have done it again had she owned up to her mistakes and corrected them," a source claimed, alleging that Miranda refused to apologize and chose to end the marriage. "It was a crushing blow to Blake's ego." However, we should note that sources close to Lambert have consistently denied that she was ever unfaithful to Shelton.

Does Miranda Lambert abuse her power in the industry? Sources close to Felker claim she wooed him with her fame as the queen of country. An insider told People that before leaving for their tour together, Lambert and Felker began texting. At first, the sources claim, the texts were friendly and professional about looking forward to working and writing together, but those messages allegedly grew increasingly flirtatious as the excursion neared.

"He knew it was flirty and crossed a line with Staci. He showed her the whole thing and felt bad about it," a source said. "It wasn't sexual or anything, but he was like, 'I don't want to blow her off because this is the kind of money that can change our grandkids' lives if I'm able to write with this person.'" What's more, sources claimed Lambert dropped hints at hooking up with Felker on social media, posting photos of his favorite beer and writing gear (including his signature graphing paper) before reports of their romance went public. 

Felker wasn't the only man allegedly blinded by Lambert's success. A source told InTouch Weekly that it wasn't lost on singer-songwriter Anderson East that he was launched into the "musical A-list" once he and Lambert went public.

Still, it's also important to ask: Is Lambert leveraging her fame to win men over, or are these gentlemen actually just trying to use her to further their own careers?

Perhaps a large reason why Miranda Lambert's sketchy love life has gone relatively unnoticed (or at least had not been widely commented upon previously) is because her breakup songs — which often paint her as being wronged, scorned, and heartbroken — are just so good that you can't imagine they'd be deceptive. When she won the 2018 Academy of Country Music Award for song of the year for the heart-wrenching "Tin Man," she thanked the audience for "sharing [her] broken heart."

Following her divorce form Shelton, she made cryptic social media posts about "heartache," but she did not appear to actively court press nearly as much as Shelton — though it's unclear if that was because Shelton was trying to rub her nose in his new relationship with fellow The Voice coach Gwen Stefani or if it was due to Lambert simply wanting to avoid uncomfortable questions. 

Lambert did, however, lament to Cosmopolitan in January 2016: "We were together for 10 years, married for four, were very quickly divorced, and are friends. I'm still processing everything and figuring out where to go and what happened." 

A source told Life & Style, "[Shelton] believes some things never change, including what he sees as Miranda's twisted relationship antics ... Blake was always made out to be the bad guy after he filed for divorce and sent Miranda packing from Oklahoma. [Lambert] played the victim."

While her personal life can seem like a bit of a mess, Miranda Lambert is hugely successful and acclaimed in her professional life ... at least she is now. In the past, however, there are rumors about conflict between her and fellow country singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves over Lambert's hit song, "Mama's Broken Heart."

Musgraves reportedly wrote the track and was reluctant to sell it to any other artist to record. In January 2013, Lambert, who grew up with Musgraves in Texas, admitted to The Boot, "We used to write together a lot and kind of went our separate ways. I don't think I was supposed to be pitched ['Mama's Broken Heart']. But [then], her sister actually shot some pictures at mine and Blake's wedding, and she was there, too. At our rehearsal dinner, I went over and asked her, 'Are you gonna cut this song or can I have it?' And she was like, 'I'll think about it for a couple of days.'"

Musgraves eventually gave in, with the caveat that she had to sing harmonies on the tune. However, based on some perceived shade the "Space Cowboy" singer has thrown Lambert's way since, it seems like Musgraves may have been really reluctant to give up such a massive hit.

Miranda Lambert's breakout hit was the 2005 barn burner "Kerosene," a breakup anthem that blasted up the charts. Though most of her lyrics were original, the music — down to a harmonica break and even some of the ad-libbed "ha" moments — were almost identical to Steve Earle's 1996 track "I Feel Alright."

When it was brought to Lambert's attention (by the press and the public, but never by Earle himself), she was quick to add a credit for Earle as a co-writer on the song, which entitled him to half the hit's royalties. He later told Rolling Stone, "I hadn't even heard it, and I felt bad telling her that I never would have done anything about it either if I'd known, because I don't do s**t like that. I've been sued enough, mainly divorces, so I don't particularly care to be involved in that myself."

There were no hard feelings between them, and Lambert and Earle, who she has called one of her heroes, eventually collaborated on the duet "This is How it Ends."

In February 2019, TMZ reported that Miranda Lambert flipped a woman's salad into her lap during a heated exchange at a Nashville steakhouse. We'll explain. Sources close to the country music singer told the gossip rag that the apparent food fight allegedly began when an older man at another table gave her male pal — who looked a lot like her husband, Brendan McLoughlin (more on him in a minute) — attitude in the men's room. He reportedly griped about Millennials always being on their phones (how original). 

The alleged argument continued in the dining area, where the older man supposedly came to Lambert's table and started screaming. For her part, Lambert reportedly sassed the man's wife before dumping the woman's salad onto her lap. Police sources cited by TMZ claimed that authorities were called because of two men fighting, but that Lambert and her man-friend had left before officers arrived. Video of the incident shows the older man berating Lambert's gentleman companion before she flounces out of the eatery, with an onlooker quipping, "Only in Nashville."