Rimes: Women taped phone conversation

LeAnn Rimes sued two women she claims illegally recorded a phone conversation with her and posted snippets online, one day after she sought professional help for anxiety and stress, The Associated Press reports.

Rimes sued Kimberly Smiley and her adult daughter, Lexi, on Thursday, seeking more than $25,000 in damages for recording a March phone conversation that ended up on websites bashing the singer.

Kimberly Smiley denied she posted the recording, saying she shared it with online acquaintances, one of whom played it for the ex-wife of Rimes' husband, Eddie Cibrian. "The whole thing is just ridiculous," she said. "It's just a celebrity who's too full of herself."

The invasion of privacy lawsuit came one day after Rimes, 30, entered a treatment facility in what her publicist Marcel Pariseau describes an attempt to "learn and develop coping mechanisms."

The recorded phone call occurred because a friend of Rimes connected the singer and Smiley to try to stop some negative online postings, according to the lawsuit and an interview with Smiley.