by Preparing to usher in a new era of music, Shania Twain takes time to reflect on her personal pain from the past.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, the five-time Grammy-winning actress recalled the sexual and physical abuse she was subjected to by her stepfather, Jerry, and said she changed her appearance as a coping mechanism.
“I used to hide myself and flatten my boobs,” Twain said. “I used to wear bras that were too small for me and I would wear two, playing it until there was nothing left about me. Make it easy to go unnoticed. Because, oh my God, it was terrible – you didn’t want to be a girl in my house.
Jerry adopted Twain when he was 4 years old, along with his two sisters. He and Twain’s mother, Sharon, died in a car accident in 1987.
While Twain initially found solace in music, she said she had a hard time embracing her sexuality at first when she started to pursue a career as a singer-songwriter.
“I’m ashamed to be a girl,” she said. “Suddenly I was like, ‘Well, what’s wrong with you? You know, you’re a woman and you have a beautiful body?’ What was very natural for other people was very frightening for me. I felt exploited, but now I had no other choice. I should have played the glamorous singer, I should have worn my femininity more openly or more freely. And calculate how I won’t be groped or raped by someone’s eyes and not feel so humiliated.
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Twain had previously disclosed his stepfather’s abuse in his 2011 memoir “In This Moment.” And on “60 Minutes Australia” in 2017, she remembered when she had to stand between her parents to defend her mother.
“Sometimes I got physically involved in my parents’ fights because I thought he was going to kill me. [my mom]said. “One day she will kill him.”
As 2022 draws to a close, Twain is on the verge of a professional resurgence. In September, he released “Waking Up Dreaming”, his first new single in five years. She will appear in Disney’s special live-action movie “Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration,” which will air later this month on ABC.
She’s also gearing up to release her sixth studio album, “Queen of Me,” early next year before embarking on a world tour.
“I’m really excited to cheer people up,” he told The Sun this fall. “I had a very productive songwriting epidemic, and no matter how isolated we were, it was almost like I wanted to cheer myself up, and that showed up in the music.”
