Dixie wasn’t the only one who went through in the latest episode of 9-1-1: Nashville because LeAnn Rimes was also working through her fear of snakes – and planes.
“I remember after 9/11, I didn’t fly for two years. I took a tour bus everywhere and then one day I was like, ‘This is stupid. I have to fly,'” Rimes, 44, said exclusively Us about past flight anxiety. “I just hand it over to something bigger than me and say, ‘If it’s my time, it’s my time.’ I have to do that to do my job so I came to peace with it many years ago.”
In the Thursday, November 5, episode of the ABC show Dixie was involved in a plane full of cobras. To make matters worse, the plane nearly crashed, prompting Dixie to sing a rendition of “Amazing Grace” as he braced himself for possible death.
“I said, ‘This is so funny because I’ve literally been thinking so many times about what would I say to comfort myself? What’s the last song I’d want to sing if it was going down like that?'” Rimes recalled. “And it has always been ‘Amazing Grace.’ That was so true for me. I was like, ‘I love that we’re doing this because I’ve thought this many times before.’ So I got to play it out without ever playing it out in real life.”
She continued: “I know people are afraid of flying. I used to be for a while and then I finally made peace with it. But, I wouldn’t make peace with snakes on a plane and I hope that never happens.”
Despite the near-death row, Rimes wasn’t too worried about her future on the show, saying, “We’re not there. She’s fine. I loved this episode because it’s the first time I’ve done anything like this before. I had a lot of fun but I hate snakes so this was so interesting to me.”
Rimes was also thankful that there were no real snakes involved in the filming of the episode.
9-1-1: Nashville viewers have been rooting for LeAnn Rimes and Jessica Capshaw’s on-screen chemistry — and the country singer isn’t ruling out an on-screen romance between Dixie and Blythe. “That [idea] it’s my favorite. Jessica and I laugh so much about that,” Rimes, 43, told Us Weekly exclusively ahead of Thursday’s 9-1-1: Nashville return, […]
“I was like, ‘Are we even using real snakes?’ I was really down for it because I know they would never put me in harm’s way. I was open to it. I was like, ‘Whatever we have to do to make this as real as possible,'” she recalled. “There’s a lot of heart in the whole episode. You see Dixie in a new light.”
She concluded: “It’s absolutely crazy how all our programs are and at the same time, I think there’s this beautiful foundation through the line of humanity at play in it.
9-1-1: Nashville airs on ABC Thursdays at 9pm ET.