For those who are not versed in pop culture, or are country music fans, a few nights ago the Country Music Awards were broadcast on National Television. And, much like everything else pop culture that passes for “news” these days (Kirstie Alley losing weight making the local news? Hey — it happened in Toronto!) there was one particularly delicious moment of honesty and candor from Faith Hill when Female Vocalist of the Year was announced.

Its best to see it for yourself:

All done?

So getting to the juicy bits: Faith Hill’s PR team tried to spin it out as though her expression of utter shock and refreshingly obvious disbelief (it reminds me of an old Rowan Atkinson sketch, actually) was her attempt at being “playful” — and it was, I suppose, treated as such as it was soon fading with the results of the mid-term election.

Well — the untake-backable power of the internet / blogosphere / “send” button was not to be outdone!

In a catastrophically damning PR move on Leanne Rimes’ site, Ms. Rimes decides to stir the pot — unwittingly kick the sh*t, as it were — and post the following on her own site that has since been taken down (hat tip to blogging times / blogcritics):

“Okay, I usually keep quiet on topics like this but I feel I need to stand up for my friend, Faith. She was just being honest and emotional like every other person sitting at home with an opinion. These awards shows are SO political and we all get fed up with them. We all work very hard and have for many years so to see someone come in and win Female Vocalist that has been here for a VERY short time, is a little disheartening.”

“That is why we have the Horizon award and Carrie had an incredible year, enough to sweep that one. I don’t think Faith was angry about her loss, she probably felt, as I did that Carrie has not paid her dues long enough to fully deserve that award. As artists and public figures, we have to keep our feelings so repressed so we don’t get called ungrateful as Faith has on this board many times now. She is a very sweet and gracious woman, whom I adore. Please cut her some slack!”

… and basically sending Faith Hill up crap river with nothing but a banjo and donkey.

Well, I feel for Leanne — she was certainly trying to do the right thing, but by being honest and transparent (buzzword bingo!) she’ certainly screwed things over for her friend and colleague who was doing her best to spin herself out of the quagmire this has put her in, particuarly because they’ve denied, denied, denied.

[aside: the youtube videos of her "freakout" have topped over 3 million views].

Lo, that lesson about emails being untake-backable is a bitter pill is tough to swallow; and even tougher is google caches, and blogs who pick up on this type of thing and don’t forget it.

Well, with the YouTube videos flying about and Ms Rime’s unintentionally outing her friend, the best possible thing for Faith Hill to do is go on Oprah or Letterman or Leno and square the whole thing out; lay out it out the line, get America to sympathize with her impossibly good looks while trying to be gracious to Carrie Underwood and that’ll be that.

Or — maybe she’ll start her own blog to clear the air.

Nah?

I’m betting on Oprah. ;)