Mistaken identity: Fans ask Rimes look-alike for autographs
By Keighla Schmidt
Leader-telegram Staff
Valerie Gray, 18 of Eau Claire signed the T-shirt of Cathy Martin from Iowa as LeAnn Rimes. Gray was sitting at a picnic table at Country Fest when Martin approached her and told her she looked a lot like the singer.
^$^It's a Las Vegas attraction. Some people make a living doing it. Others simply dye their hair and — viola! They look like a celebrity.
Valerie Gray, 18, trekked off from Eau Claire to Cadott this weekend to enjoy Country Fest. While she was there, she began signing autographs as LeAnn Rimes even though she is not a singer.
Cathy Martin, who has traveled to Country Fest with a group from Iowa for many years, thought Gray looked just like Rimes. After Rimes's Thursday night performance, Gray was sitting at a picnic table with her mother when she was approached by Martin.
Martin said it was Gray's blond hair — as well as eyebrows, hairstyle and a black shirt similar to the one Rimes had just been wearing onstage — that made her think the young woman was the superstar.
Gray said she recently changed her hair color from dark brown to blond and suspects the change is what sparked people to see the resemblance.
"I was kinda surprised," Gray said by telephone from the festival grounds, describing her reaction when people came up to her asking her if she was the performer. "This has never happened before; it was the first time."
However, it wasn't the first time Martin had thought she had seen a celebrity.
She said in the past she has seen people she thought looked just like country singers Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban and Alan Jackson.
Gray said she signed three shirts and took one photo posing as Rimes with other people at the festival. She said she made the others aware she was not Rimes.
Gray said she enjoyed watching and listening to Rime's performance on Thursday night.
"It was a really good concert," Gray said. "I've never seen her before."
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