For much of her career, Miranda Lambert has been country music’s go-to girl with a gun who’ll kick your ass (and set your house on fire). But with the success of her biggest hit (the heart-tugger “The House That Built Me”) and the forthcoming release of her new album, “Platinum,” the country queen is proving she’s ready to make nice. “‘Hey, I have this other side. I love pink and puppies, too,'” she tells Billboard in a new cover story. But don’t worry folks, she’s not abandoning her fiery side. “That is who I am,” she asserts. “I’m just a Texas girl that speaks her mind, and sometimes that gets me in trouble.”
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Go behind the scenes of Miranda’s Billboard cover shoot in the exclusive video below, plus check out five things we learned about the artist, and be sure to watch her perform with fellow star Carrie Underwood on the 2014 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday, May 18 on ABC.
THIS A-LIST STAR STILL LIVES IN A SMALL TOWN. When not touring, Lambert and husband Blake Shelton hang their hats in Tishomingo, Okla. (pop. 3,100), where she owns a women’s western wear store — The Pink Pistol — and is preparing to open a bed-and-breakfast. She begins most mornings by feeding the couple’s animals and saddling up her horses. “I love the slow pace, the normalcy that it gives me.”
SHE’S MORE THAN JUST A GUN-SLINGING TOUGH GIRL. “With success, I’ve been able to sort of calm that down and go, ‘OK, I don’t have to be guns a-blazin’ all the time. People are listening, so I can open up my softer side and show people who the whole Miranda is.'”
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SHE’S PERPLEXED BY THE LACK OF WOMEN ON COUNTRY RADIO. Despite the surging popularity of country music in general, femaie artists are barely getting played on radio. “I don’t know what’s going on with all the other great female artists,” she says. “This is just one of those waves where females are struggling a little bit, but we’ll come back around and be a force to be reckoned with.”
SHE AND SHELTON LAUGH OFF THOSE TABLOID RUMORS. “I think I’ve had like five sets of twins in the last two years, and we’ve been divorced four times, and one of us had a $100 million divorce.”
YEAH SHE LOST SOME WEIGHT… SO WHAT? A svelte Lambert showed up at last month’s Academy of Country Music Awards and all tabloid-hell broke out. “It just feels like you can’t do anything for yourself anymore,” she says. “Have you ever thought I might just be turning 30 and trying to get a little ahead of the game? Isn’t that just a normal thing to do?”
Return to Billboard.com on Monday morning for the FULL cover story.