"What was so natural for other people was so scary for me. I felt exploited, but I didn’t have a choice now," the 57-year-old singer shared.
Trigger Warning: This story mentions Child Sexual Abuse that some readers may find distressing.
Shania Twain had an upbringing that was far from easy. The You're Still the One singer recently revealed the hardships she endured growing up in poverty in Ontario, Canada, with her four siblings, mom, Sharon, and stepfather. She was only ten years old when she experienced sexual abuse by her stepfather. When she was 4, Shania was legally adopted by Jerry Twain after her mom married him. In an interview with The Sunday Times, the 57-year-old singer said she would hide parts of her body as a means of coping because she grew up terrified to be a girl.
"I hid myself and I would flatten my b**bs," the Man! I Feel Like a Woman! singer said. "I would wear bras that were too small for me, and I'd wear two, play it down until there was nothing girl about me. Make it easier to go unnoticed. Because, oh my gosh, it was terrible — you didn't want to be a girl in my house." Slowly Shania learned to fight back to defend herself and her mother. “I think a lot of that was anger, not courage,” she admitted candidly. “And it took a long time to manage that anger.” She added, “You don’t want to be somebody that attacks me on the street. Because I will f*cing rip your head off if I get the chance.”
Her mother and stepfather died in a car crash when she was 22 years old, reports TODAY. As one of the oldest, the Grammy winner ended up abandoning her dreams to raise her sibling. While she did find solace in songwriting she was still struggling with “unpleasant stuff” outside of her home as well made her feel “ashamed” to be a girl. "Then you go into society and you're a girl and you're getting the normal other unpleasant stuff too, and that reinforces it. So then you think, 'Oh, I guess it's just s---ty to be a girl. Oh, it's so s---ty to have boobs.' I was ashamed of being a girl," she told The Sunday Times.
Over time she learned to embrace her femininity but it wasn't easy. “All of a sudden it was like, ‘Well, what’s your problem?’ You know, ‘You’re a woman and you have this beautiful body?’ What was so natural for other people was so scary for me. I felt exploited, but I didn’t have a choice now.” She continued, “I had to play the glamorous singer, had to wear my femininity more openly or more freely. And work out how I’m not gonna get groped, or raped by someone’s eyes, you know, and feel so degraded.”
The superstar soon found success and build her confidence and found ways to express herself through fashion. Decades into her music career she is now "celebrating escaping this horrible state of not wanting to be who I am,” she said. “And I’m so confident. Now that I discovered that it’s OK to be a girl. The unapologetic woman is a very powerful person indeed,” she concluded.
In another interview, Twain revealed that she found her solace in writing songs and performing them because she "wanted to escape" the violence and the poverty at home. Twain "played with words and sounds." She acknowledged, "I was born to be a fighter and a survivor." In another interview, Twain said, "I think I've remained very detached from my life to this point, almost as though it was a different person, every phrase I went through. So I've reconnected and said, no, this is actually who I am. I'm neither embarrassed of who I am, where I come from, what I've experienced, I'm not ashamed of it."
References:
https://www.today.com/popculture/news/shania-twain-flatten-breasts-stepfather-abuse-rcna60212
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Mike Coppola
