Shania Twain just got candid about the heartbreak she’s experienced so far in life. The “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” singer joined Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones on Friday, May 1, and discussed her life’s many difficulties.
Shania, 60, did not have an easy life as a kid. She grew up in the picturesque yet impoverished town of Timmins, Ontario, alongside her four siblings. As a young her, Shania remembered her parents’ struggling to make ends meet.
“For so many years, I’ve opened up about some of the difficulties and challenges [of my childhood],” Shania explained on Today with Jenna and Sheinelle. “But I want my fans to relate to the things I talk about when it comes to heartbreak or disappointment.”
Sheinelle chimed in, telling Shania: “They do!” Shania’s heartbreak is what makes her music so powerful and connects her with her many fans.
Shania Twain’s difficult childhood
Aside from being raised in poverty, Shania’s stepfather, Jerry Twain, struggled with addiction and mental health issues, often breaking out into violence towards both the singer and her mom, Sharon.
“I was worried about my father killing my mother,” Shania told The Guardian in 2018. “I thought they’d kill each other. My mom was quite violent, too. Many nights I went to bed thinking: ‘Don’t go to sleep, don’t go to sleep, wait till they are sleeping.’ And I would wake up and make sure everybody was breathing.”
© InstagramThis dark chapter in her life came to a devastating climax when both her parents died in a car crash when she was just 22. Shania recalled her feelings at the time during a 2023 appearance on Today, saying: “I just, you know, I fell apart totally, just into shock for days and I just couldn’t let go of them.”
Shania Twain’s heartbreak
In 2008, Shania and her husband of 14 years, Robert “Mutt” Lange, split after the singer learned Mutt was having an affair with her close friend, Marie-Anne Thiébaud.
© Steve GranitzShania and Mutt finalized their divorce in 2010, she found solidarity and love with Marie-Anne’s ex-husband Frédéric Thiébaud. The two married on New Year’s Day in 2011 and are still together 15 years later. While she found love, Shania admitted that her divorce was shocking.
“I don’t think that a lot of things that happened to me since my divorce should have been so hard on me,” Shania reflected on the Armchair Expert podcast in February 2023. “I should have been less naive about life’s ups and downs. Maybe I’m too much, like, ‘That’s all behind me.'”
© Andreas RentzHow Shania learned to heal herself
Regardless of the tough times Shania went through as a kid, she told Jenna and Sheneille: “I’m looking back now at my childhood with joy. I’m seeing just the good things now.” And she’s embedding that into her music too.
“I guess I’ve learned more that I never did abandon my child self,” Shania added. “[The little girl] who was dreaming about music and writing lyrics never left me.”
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