Is LeAnn Rimes-Eddie Cibrian Affair a Sham?

Think about it:

• The much-hyped Lifetime movie, Northern Lights, starring LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, was scheduled to air on Sunday, March 22 (last night).

• The new issue of Us Weekly comes out of nowhere with a story on their steamy affair a few days prior - with a surprising amount of detail for Us Weekly.

• Rimes issues a statement in which she doesn't confirm or deny anything. Cibrian does deny it, but an incriminating video surfaces about 7 seconds later.

• A mysterious, alleged cousin of Rimes' husband, Dean Sheremet, emerges from the woodwork to say that he's actually gay and LeAnn is just his beard.

Was this all a publicity stunt for their movie?

LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian: Caught in the act (of filming a movie)!

We've seen Adrienne Bailon's PR guy leak nude pics of her, and Britney Spears' manager Larry Rudolph hack the email of choreographer Sandip Soparrkar to propagate rumors that he was dating Spears. So nothing would surprise us.

Then again, maybe there's truth to these rumors after all.

With an epic line rivaling the cheesiness of even the greatest One Tree Hill quotes, LeAnn Rimes' Northern Lights character says to Eddie Cibrian's in the TV movie:

"Now that we've run out of things to say, do you want to have sex? You know, hot, wet, forget-all-of our-problems sex. It's basic, it's primal, and it's low in fat."

And... scene.

It's that kind of dialogue that makes you wonder ... if Rimes' supposed off-set affair with Cibrian (both of whom are married) was concocted based on their on-set chemistry, or of said chemistry is a product of a real-life tryst.

Does it matter? Not to Lifetime, which scored an estimated 4.5 million viewers last night, the network said. The movie is the network's biggest of the year.