She suffered what could be termed as the worst divorce and betrayal and yet found the courage to stand up and get her life back together.
The pain of being separated from a loved one remains one of the most emotionally damaging experiences ever. But what do you do when you learn that not one, but two of your confidantes have let you down? You will be devastated, to say the least. One of the most celebrated country singers, Shania Twain went through the trauma of her husband betraying her and with none else but her best friend.
Shania Twain fell in love with music producer Robert "Mutt" Lange the very first time they met. She just knew that he is the one. "When I met Mutt for the first time, I knew that I loved this person," Twain said. "I felt like I had already loved him," reports ABC News.
But her packed schedule and hectic work life did not allow her much time to be with her husband as much as she would have wanted to be. Twain said she eventually began to sense that something was wrong with her marriage around the time of her 2004 Up tour. "When I started to get lonely, then I knew that something wasn't right," she said. "I'm married to someone I love, and I'm so lonely...I didn't want to live that way."
As their marriage started to fall apart she started confiding on her best friend Marie-Ann Thiebaud, only to know later, that Mutt was cheating on her with Thiebaud. This threw her off the edge and she got consumed with anger, pain, and jealousy.
"Whether she was part of the cause ... of the breakup or whether it was just me leaning on her because it was already breaking up, I really don't know which came first," Twain said. "What I do know is she took advantage of, you know, the weakness in the relationship between Mutt and I."
However, she decided to confront her for the wounds that she inflicted on her but it left her even more broken emotionally, as Mutt never answered any of her questions, instead, he kept denying the claims. "I was angry at Mutt for not listening to me and not answering my questions, more than the affair itself," she said.
But that wasn't enough and rightly so. The That Don't Impress Me Much singer later confessed that she held back a lot of her emotions and impulses because she was in a state of anxiety. "I had a total panic attack", Twain said. "I just told her that she was a bad person - that's all I could get out!" She added, "When I left her, I thought, 'You're such a wimp, you coward!"'
After Mutt and Twain parted ways, she wrote a book sharing her experiences in life and the description of her pain is so heartwrenching it could depress a happy soul. "I was ready to die", she writes in her book From This Moment On and said she barely ate or slept, quotes Mail Online.
She also went so far as to beg for her husband back from Thiebaud. This shows how true love can also hurt you the most. Twain said she even wrote an email to Thiebaud to beg for her husband back writing, "I am dying, and I can't take it anymore. This is killing me. Have mercy".
However, gradually, in a sweet turn of events, she started finding solace in Mary-Anne's ex-husband Frederic Thiebaud. He showed her love again and won her bit by bit. "I don't take any day for granted anymore. Fred has given me a new lease on love," she said.
Also, Thiebaud seems to be truly in love with the 54-year-old singer. "To express my love, words are not enough. I'm more in love with her every day", Thiebaud said.
While time has healed the physical scars, it is not easy for the scars within, to fade off. She confessed that she could never forgive her friend and Mutt for giving her the worst heartache of her life. "I will never be okay with what they did", the Come On Over hitmaker said.
That being said, she has moved on and matured with life and does not want to hold onto regrets anymore. "I genuinely believe everything happens for a reason, so how can there be any room for regrets?" she quipped.
In a statement that could only come from a person of integrity and grace, she said, "I still think they're beautiful," she said of the songs she had produced with Mutt. "Nothing of my present or my future will ever take away what I had in the past, ever. I would never disrespect myself and do that. I'm very happy with every love song I ever wrote in my marriage to Mutt, and I'm very proud of the work we did together."
References:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1386119/Shania-Twain-moment-confronted-best-friend-stole-husband.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/shania-twain-opens-difficult-childhood-heart-wrenching-divorce/story?id=13529925
