Miranda Lambert covers the January issue of Marie Claire. The photoshoot is surprisingly good, I think. Marie Claire’s editorial have been hit-or-miss as of late, but this is genuinely a great cover. Miranda’s blue eyes pop, her hair looks breezy and underdone and she’s found a good weight. Over the past two years, Miranda’s weight has fluctuated – she used to be a curvy girl. That’s not a euphemism either. She had a great figure and she was curvy. But then she dieted and lost a lot of weight and she sort of went too far. It was like the Jennifer Hudson thing – the weight loss made Miranda look older and tired. Thankfully, she gained some weight back and she’s found a happy medium. And Miranda addressed the gossip about her weight in Marie Claire. Some highlights:

On her 20-pound weight loss: “When you have to walk out there in front of thousands of people, it does feel good to know that your sh-t’s not jiggling. I’m just like anybody else, insecure and scared of looking bad or being criticized. But everybody’s making this big, giant thing about it. It’s way too much focus on women’s bikini photos, and I hate it. Why do we care? I want women to love themselves whatever they’ve got going on.”

On writing and singing her own songs: “Early on, an artist told me, ‘Don’t be yourself. Perform and be someone else. And I thought, ‘That seems like exactly the opposite of what I should be doing.’ Then I had people wanting me to adjust my lyrics to be more appealing to the masses or whatever. I said, ‘No, that’s bullshit.’ I’d rather sell four copies of something that’s real than 4 million copies of something that’s fake.”

On marriage: “I’m not sunshine and roses. Blake’s the happiest person on the planet. He pulls me out of my darkness… Literally everything is the best about being married.”

On her chosen career: “When I first started playing bars in Texas, my parents had to come so I could get in. I didn’t have any other plans. I didn’t go to college. There was no, ‘if this doesn’t work out…’ It was like: ‘This has to work out!’ When I walk into a bar and smell old beer and cigarettes, it smells like home, because that’s where I grew up.”

On lightening up psychologically: “I’m always anxious. I will worry myself into oblivion. I was trying to make everything regimented, and it caused too much stress. I learned everything doesn’t have to be perfect. That sometimes it’s OK to say, ‘I don’t want to be the boss today. I have PMS. Bother someone else.’ I like things better flawed anyway.”

On her Claritin: “It’s just allergies. I’m not afraid of a pill. I have to take them in the mornings because I drink a lot. Advil helps. So does a Bloody Mary.”

How much she actually drinks: “You know when you have to check those boxes when you go to the doctor? Do you drink every day? Never? Socially? I’m always like, Hmm, the truth or not the truth?” She checks “socially.”

[From Marie Claire]

Blake Shelton talks about alcohol in a similar way too – to hear Blake tell it, he’s getting hammered every single day, although some say his good ol’ drunk boy thing is just a carefully cultivated image. I do wonder about that. I suspect that alcohol plays a big part in Miranda and Blake’s married life and I wonder if they need something to “lubricate” their marriage to make it work. But hearing Miranda say that she’s a worrier and anxious and all of that stuff, it makes me wonder if we’ve been misreading Miranda and Blake’s “marriage troubles” this whole time. Maybe she’s just anxious and Blake is the one who makes her relax. And if he can’t make her relax, maybe he just gets her a drink.

As for Miranda’s “twenty pound weight loss”… her sh-t was NOT jiggling before, though. That’s the thing. Her body was perfectly lovely before. It feels like she wants to have the Taylor Swift/Carrie Underwood type of body.

Photos courtesy of Boe Marion/Marie Claire.