Shania Twain Reveals Her Stepfather Used to Abuse Her
Shania Twain has experienced a lot of pain in her life. Of course, there was the heartbreaking infidelity of her ex-husband, Mutt Lange, with her former best friend; the couple's subsequent divorce is the subject of her new album, Now, out Sept. 29. More recently, the 52-year-old singer revealed that she battled Lyme disease followed by dysphonia, a vocal cord disorder, as two more reasons for her 15-year break from the spotlight.
But the country-pop icon was weathering hardship long before she became famous, back when she was just a child. In a new interview with 60 Minutes, Shania opened up about the abuse she and her mother suffered at the hands of her stepfather.
"He just had issues - and, at the time I was looking at this man as somebody who was not being himself," Shania said. "It was like he was two people."
Shania was born Eilleen Regina Edwards, the second oldest of three girls in Ontario, Canada. After her parents divorced, Shania's mother, Sharon, remarried a man named Jerry Twain, who adopted the girls. Sharon and Jerry had a son, Mark, and adopted Jerry's orphaned baby nephew, Darryl.
But the family was very poor, and Jerry was violent. At times, the abuse was verbal, with Jerry shouting "vulgarities" at the family according to Shania, and other times, physical, which made her fear for her mother's life.
I just thought that he would kill her. One of these times - he was gonna kill her.
In Shania's 2001 memoir, From This Moment On, the star recalled a particularly violent incident in which Jerry had beaten Sharon unconscious and continued to repeatedly plunge her head in the toilet. By the time she was 11, Shania had begun fighting back. "I ran up behind my dad with a chair in both hands and smashed it across his back," she wrote. "Before I could get away, he punched me in the jaw. Adrenaline pumping, I punched him back!"
At the age of 12, Shania was already helping to provide for her struggling family by performing on TV, in clubs and at community events. But that didn't protect her from Jerry. Shania also revealed in the autobiography that he abused her sexually as a teenager.
Shania was still an aspiring songwriter when her parents died in a tragic car accident, leaving the 22-year-old responsible for supporting for her younger siblings.
"At that point in my life, I would have rather gone with them," Shania said, referring to her parents. "It was like, 'This is way too much to handle.'"
Still, she didn't give up. Instead, she took a job performing in a Vegas-style show at a nearby resort to pay the bills. A few years later, she was discovered and made it big - really big. To this day, Shania Twain remains the best-selling female artist in the history of country music, despite all of the pain she has endured throughout her life.
"I think what made my divorce heavier for me in the moment was the fact that it was like, 'I don't think I can handle one more bloody thing like that. How many more traumatic moments can I take?'" Shania confessed during the interview, tears welling up in her eyes.
But, as she said, "I was born to be a fighter and a survivor." And now, happily married and with a new album, tour and a movie with John Travolta on the way, Shania is back - and better than ever.
BUY NOW: "Now" by Shania Twain, $12, itunes.apple.com
[h/t: 60 Minutes]
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