Shania Twain had been on a six-year music hiatus because of Lyme disease when the couple split up in 2008. After a 15-year hiatus from making music, Shania Twain came back as the best-selling female country musician of all time.
Twain’s first album since 2002, Now, which she released in 2017, chronicled the shock of her divorce from Robert Lange after he cheated on her with Marie-Anne Thiebaud, her former personal assistant, and close friend. Twain claimed that the divorce compelled her to confront the grief over her parents’ deaths that she had suppressed.
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Where was Shania Twain born? Ethnicity, Nationality, Family
Due to pressures from his marriage, Shania’s biological father left the family. Sharon and Clarence Edwards gave birth to Shania Twain as Eilleen Regina Edwards in Ontario, Canada. Jill and Carrie Ann, two sisters, were raised next to her.
When Twain’s parents separated, she was two years old. One morning Clarence got up and left, blaming Sharon’s possessiveness for his decision. To The National Enquirer, he stated:
“I was there with Eilleen and her sister Carrie-Ann till they were 5 or 6 because I was Shania’s mother’s husband for seven years. Being a railroad engineer was a very demanding job for me. Additionally, Shania’s mother was an extremely possessive and jealous person. She didn’t enjoy it when I engaged in typical activities like going out for a beer with friends.
Clarence said that the stress led to a nervous breakdown that required a short stay in the hospital. Clarence claimed Sharon had already gone on with her lover, Jerry Twain when they left the hospital and checked out.
The sisters were relocated to Timmins, Ontario, where Sharon reared them with Mark, her and Jerry’s son, and Daryl, Jerry’s infant nephew. Following the formal adoption of the kids by Jerry, Shania’s last name was changed to Twain.
Clarence didn’t raise the children, so Twain objected to calling him her father. She uttered:
Jerry, my father, went above and beyond to raise three kids who weren’t even his. He would have been extremely hurt for me to accept another man as my father, a man who was never there for me as a father and who wasn’t the one who toiled every day to put food on our table.
According to Shania, the prefix “step” was never used in the home. To call him my stepfather would have been the worst smack in the face for him, according to Twain. Clarence claimed he was proud of Shania even though they had never spoken.
He told The National Enquirer that Shania was his daughter and that he was extremely proud of her. But the fact that she disconnected from me hurts my heart. Twain’s mother pushed her to continue singing. At age 3, Shania Twain began singing; by age 8, she was able to play the guitar. Twain used music as a coping mechanism for the stress in her life. She affirmed to The Guardian:
“I desired to flee. hostile home. Tensions. No food to be had. There is nothing you can do when you are hungry other than try to ignore it. And it truly does work. It is healing. Many children play with dolls, but I preferred to use words and sounds instead.
Shania didn’t aspire to be a famous person, but her mother’s inspiration inspired her to think about a future in music. Jerry wasn’t a fan of Shania’s music, so she and Sharon waited until he was sleeping before sneaking out to see Shania Twain perform at local clubs. She said to CNN:
“Probably hearing my mom tell me, ‘You can make it, you’re going to make it,’ made me feel like if I made it, it was going to save us in some way, and being a performer, to do it as a career, was more of a burden.”
Mama Won’t You Come Out To Play, one of Shania’s early songs, is about her mother’s ongoing grief and how she longs to bring Sharon joy.
She uttered:
“My mum was quite solitary with herself all the time. I’m still not sure why, exactly. She is no longer living, therefore I can’t ask her. I penned that song as an invitation to my mother to come out and play since she was often depressed and simply lacked the guts to face life.
Twain and Sharon had an abusive relationship that included physical violence.
Native to the Ojibwa tribe, Jerry was belligerent, intoxicated, and mentally ill. As she described to The Guardian:
“It’s true that a third of my relatives died by suicide when they were young. Many of them passed away too soon as a result of abuse of alcohol and mistreatment.
Although financially struggling, Sharon and Jerry’s home was rife with violence. According to Shania’s account to The Guardian, she frequently waited until her parents were asleep to make sure they hadn’t killed each other. When she would awaken, she would check on everyone’s respiration.
Jerry once beat Sharon unconscious and repeatedly flushed her head into the toilet, according to Shania’s memoir. Concerned for Sharon, Shania confronted Jerry: I slammed a chair across my father’s back as I raced up behind him holding it in both hands. He hit me in the jaw before I could flee. I punched him back with my adrenaline pumping.
Her stepfather sexually assaulted Twain. Domestic violence had little effect on Shania. She reported Jerry’s physical, emotional, and sexual assault to The Guardian. She uttered:
“About 10 years old.” When it’s someone you know, I believe that sexual abuse often goes hand in hand with physical and psychological assault. I figured out how to ignore it.”
Twain persuaded herself that Jerry’s illness was the reason he mistreated her. Although she was sorry for her predicament, she decided not to report it since she couldn’t handle the idea of her family being split apart. Shania clarified:
“Either go to Children’s Aid and be saved right now, or… We all stayed together for better or worse because I reasoned, “If I go to Children’s Aid, we’ll all get divided,” and I just couldn’t face it.”
Shania insisted on using the name Twain despite Jerry’s mistreatment of her. After she signed with a record company, the name Eilleen Twain was requested to be changed. She took the name Shania, which is Ojibwa for “on my path,” in place of Eilleen.
After her parents perished in a vehicle accident, Shania took care of her siblings.
Shania was about to make a breakthrough at the age of 22. She then learned that her parents had perished in a vehicle accident. I would have preferred to travel with them [her parents] at that time in my life, Twain remarked. “This is way too much to manage,” was the feeling.
Twain didn’t have time to be sad because she abandoned her musical ambitions and relocated to Huntsville, Ontario, to care for her younger brothers. By giving a concert at the nearby Deerhurst Resort, Shania helped support the family.
After her siblings went out on their own about six years later, Shania continued her quest for music glory.
Shania never dealt with the loss of her parents because she had to raise her siblings. She admitted to The Guardian that their passing rendered the sorrow of her divorce insignificant, and that having survived their passing had prepared her for difficulties she would face in the future. Shania clarified:
“Much more so than the betrayal, I grieved when my parents passed away. Simply put, I was out of it. Shock and grief together can make your mind do weird things. This was not quite as painful as my parents passing away, and that helped me get through.
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