Shania Twain is one of country music's most
famous faces with a ton of hits and shiny prizes to show for them. Twain has sold more than 85 million albums
and boasts some of the most memorable anthems of the genre. But behind all the success, Twain has suffered
a mountain of tragedy and heartbreak in her lifetime. Here's what you may not know about Shania
Twain's life away from the microphone. Humble beginnings Shania Twain might live a life filled with
fame and fortune now, but she grew up in poverty. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Twain
remembered being jealous of her schoolmates who had more nutritious lunches because she
was usually sent with nothing but a slice of bread to eat. She said, "I don't regret my childhood. Learning to make mustard sandwiches was something
just to get me through the embarrassment, to help me avoid humiliation. I would certainly never have humiliated myself
enough to reach out and ask for help and say, 'You know, I'm hungry. Can I have that apple that you're not going
to eat?' I didn't have the courage to do that." She also claims to have only feared that her
teachers would discover how bad off her family was and that she'd be taken away. All these years later, her plate is full,
but Twain makes a point of helping those kids who might be suffering similar experiences
as she did. In 2014, she launched Shania Kids Can Charity
Foundation. It's a program that identifies kids in need
for various reasons and provides discreet assistance, giving lunches to children in
need, paying field trip expenses, and fulfilling hygiene, clothing, and other educational needs,
too. Turbulent home life In addition to being poor as a kid, Twain
also revealed that she was traumatized by things she witnessed in her childhood. Not only that, but she said that she was abused
by her stepfather, Jerry Twain. But she wasn't the only person to experience
her step father's wrath — Twain's own mother Sharon took the brunt of his anger. She told ABC in 2011, "[It was] overwhelming
for any child to never know what to expect from one day to the next. It could happen anytime. But also you don't know if they're going to
survive it." She recalled one particular moment where Jerry
nearly drowned her mother in a toilet bowl and thought he'd killed her in front of them. Twain said she went into shock at the thought
of her mother dying. But the abuse left Twain confused for multiple
reasons. She had both love and fear for the man who
raised her and is still conflicted about how to feel about their past. Meanwhile, her relationship with her mother
had also been strained growing up. Perhaps due to the traumas of her home, Twain
said her mother often isolated herself when she was a child. Witnessing the turmoil as a young kid, Twain
penned her first song about her mother, called "Mama Won't You Come Out to Play." She explained on Good Morning America: "My
mother was always… very isolating of herself. I don't still really understand why. She's not alive anymore for me to ask her. I wish I could, but she was always that person
that was watching life happen from inside through a window." Unexpected goodbyes Tragedy would strike the Twain household in
November 1987 when both of her parents were killed in a car accident. The couple was reportedly heading to a job
site when a truck carrying timber crossed into their lane and collided with them head
on. "And come face to face with the fragility
of life and how fleeting it can be, then you realize nothing else matters." Faced with a crisis, Twain stepped up to the
plate to care for her two teenage brothers and sister, leaving her budding music career
behind. She would eventually return once her siblings
were grown up, of course, but it would take almost a decade for her to fully arrive as
a result of the personal setback. Major betrayal Twain was married to Robert "Mutt" Lange for
over a decade before their union began to unravel in 2008. Lange, who'd been her spouse, the father of
her son, and her long-time manager, reportedly confessed to cheating and falling in love
with Twain's best friend and personal assistant Marie-Anne Thiebaud. "She was my confidante. Somebody who understood what my concerns were
in my marriage." After the affair came to light, Twain wrote
her former friend Marie-Anne a letter to ask why she stole her husband with, "Why are you
torturing me? Let it go, please. Find love somewhere else from someone else." "That was humiliating at that moment for me
I was like 'Haa! I've spent so many years trying to hide so
many things and now all of a sudden how can this happen and I was very angry about that" The pair's divorce was finalized in 2010,
but her relationship drama was not quite done yet. Getting even Through her devastating break up, only one
person could relate to the pain Twain was experiencing — Marie-Anne Thiebaud's own
husband, Frederic Thiebaud. "It was terrible. She was heartbroken. She was really really heartbroken." Through the drama, he and Twain would bond
and eventually form an unexpected romance of their own. In 2009, just over a year after her marriage
fell apart, Twain let fans know through her own personal blog that her love life was beginning
to take shape once again. Twain said of Frederic, "Having gone through the suffering of his
family splitting apart at the same time and under the same extreme circumstances, he understands
me better than anyone… We leaned on one another through the ups and
downs, taking turns holding each other up. We've become stronger and closer through it
all, as have our children." In 2011, Twain and her new man would make
their love official by tying the knot in Puerto Rico. Dealing with dysphonia In the midst of her separation from her first
husband, Twain also lost something else that was very important to her— her voice. That sweet sounding country tone millions
of fans had grown to love was in jeopardy after she was diagnosed with dysphonia, in
connection with Lyme Disease. It's a condition that causes muscles to squeeze
the voice, and Twain feared she might never sing again. The process of recovery was long and hard,
and her tones have forever changed in the process. She told Rolling Stone, "I'm a different singer
now. There was a lot of coming to terms with that. It's been one of the obstacles in my life
I've just had to learn to live with." Starting over In 2017, Twain announced that she was releasing
new music after 15 years of absence from the airwaves. She told Fox News of her decision to reenter
the studio, saying, "Right from the beginning, I was not going
to collaborate with anybody for this one. This needed to be an independent experience. I hadn’t written by myself for a long time. I was married for 14 years to my collaborator,
and I really just needed to do that again." Of course, her history will have an impact
on her lyrics, as the song "Who's Gonna Be Your Girl" is a ballad about the end of her
lengthy marriage. As she told Rolling Stone, "It's about feeling
unappreciated and knowing that you are secondary. Having to live with someone that has different
priorities and accepting that you're not the most important thing in a person's life." So, after all she's been through over the
years, the silver lining is that she's got plenty of personal inspiration to work from
nowadays. The Twain train isn't set to stop rolling
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