Dixie wasn’t the only one going through it in the newest episode of 9-1-1: Nashville since LeAnn Rimes was also working through her fear of snakes — and planes.
“I remember after 9/11, I didn’t fly for like two years. I took a tour bus everywhere and then one day I was like, ‘This is ridiculous. I’m going to have to fly,'” Rimes, 44, exclusively told 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 kind of came to peace with it many years ago.”
The Thursday, November 5, episode of the ABC show had Dixie stuck on a flight filled with cobras. To make matters worse, the plane nearly crashed, which led to Dixie performing a rendition of “Amazing Grace” while preparing for a potential death.
“I said, ‘This is so funny because I’ve literally had this thought so many times about what would I sing to soothe myself? What would be the last song I would want to sing if that’s how it was going down?'” Rimes recalled. “And it’s always been ‘Amazing Grace.’ That was so very real for me. I was like, ‘I love that we’re doing this because I’ve literally had this thought so many times before.’ So I got to play it out without ever having to play it out in real life.”
She continued: “I know people have a fear of flying. I used to for a while and then I just finally made peace with it. I, however, would not make peace with snakes on a plane and hopefully that will never happen.”
Despite the near-death sequence, Rimes wasn’t too worried about her future on the show, adding, “We’re not there. She’s OK. I loved this episode because this is the first time I’ve done anything like this before. I had so much fun but I absolutely hate snakes so this was so interesting for me. I felt like it was kind of therapeutic because I had recurring snake dreams as a kid.”
Rimes was also thankful that no actual snakes were involved in filming the episode.
“I was like, ‘Are we using any real snakes at all?’ Which I was actually down for because I know they would never put me in harm’s way. I was open to it. I was like, ‘Whatever we got to do to make this as realistic as possible,'” she recalled. “There’s a lot of heart in the whole episode. You get to see Dixie in a new light.”
She concluded: “It’s absolutely insane like all of our episodes are and at the same time, I think there’s this beautiful grounding through the line of humanity that plays out in it.”
9-1-1: Nashville airs on ABC Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
