Shania Twain

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”

Shania Twain, Canadian singer-songwriter, 1965-present

Country-pop star Shania Twain has sold over 100 million records, making her the best-selling female artist in country music history and one of the best-selling musicians of all time. She became an international star following the release of her 1997 album Come On Over, the best-selling country album in history. Women everywhere have been inspired and empowered by her energetic anthems “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” and “That Don’t Impress Me Much”. In 1999, the romantic ballad “You're Still the One” earned Twain two Grammys, one for Best Country Song and another for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Her 2004 greatest hits album went quadruple platinum.

Twain’s lyrics often contain themes of lifting yourself up, reinventing yourself, and taking control of your life, something she has had to do personally several times.

Born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario, Twain started singing at the age of three, playing the guitar at eight, and songwriting by the age of 10. Her parents divorced, but her mother soon got remarried, to Jerry Twain, a member of the Ojibwa tribe, and the family took his name. Growing up in Timmins Ontario, they struggled financially, and Twain often went to school with a “poor man’s sandwich,” which was plain bread with mayonnaise. She liked to play football, and has said that she is a good receiver.

But the town was too small for a girl who wanted to sing, so she moved to Toronto alone at age 18 to get discovered. To support herself, she took a job at McDonald’s, which the down-to-Earth super star has said she enjoyed. In 1987 tragedy struck when her parents died in a car crash. Twain moved back home to care for her three younger siblings and took a job singing at the nearby Deerhurst Resort. 

Luckily her demo made it to Nashville and a label picked her up, but insisted she change her name. She picked Shania, an Ojibwe word that means “I’m on my way.” 

Twain’s first self-titled album was not a huge success but it caught the attention of the famous producer Mutt Lange, who worked with AC/DC and Def Leppard. He offered to work with her remotely, and the follow-up single, the rock-infused “Any Man of Mine,” soared to No. 1 on the country charts and was also a Top 40 pop hit. Twain received four Grammy nominations and won Best Country Album. 

When Twain and Lange finally met in person, sparks flew, and they were married six months later, moving to a luxurious Swiss estate. They had a son together, but the marriage eventually fell apart in 2008 when she discovered Lange was having an affair with her personal assistant, Marie-Anne Thiébaud, whom she considered a friend. 

When Twain She recently made an appearance at Coachella 2022 performing Man! I Feel Like A 

Twain has said she had a hard time getting out of bed after the devastation and betrayal, and around this time she began experiencing dysphonia, a tightening of the vocal muscles that made it difficult for her to sing. She was out of the public eye for the next three years, until she got married, on New Year’s Day, to Thiébaud’s ex-husband.

The healing process she went through is explored in Why Not? with Shania Twain, which aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2011. By 2012, Twain was back in action and began a two-year at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, in an aptly-titled production, Shania: Still the One.  

She released her first album of original material in 15 years with 2017's Now, and made her feature film debut in 2019 with Trading Paint alongside John Travolta.

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