Shania Twain ‘traumatic’ childhood led to years of 'anger'

Shania Twain is still in awe of her rise to the top.

Twain looked back on her difficult early life, struggling with poverty and sexual abuse, before becoming the icon she is today in a new interview with The Daily Mail.

"As if I was ever going to make it! I mean, some nobody," she said early in the interview.

She also revealed her hit song, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" wasn’t always intended to be an "empowerment song," but an expression of the hard life she’d led up until her 20s.

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Shania Twain told The Daily Mail she thought, "As if I was ever going to make it! I mean, some nobody." (Chris Ng-Muk-Yuen/NHLI via Getty Images)

"I know it’s, like, a classic female-empowerment song. But that wasn’t the intention. It’s really just me going, ‘S---!’" she told the outlet. "I missed so much time not enjoying being a woman. What was I waiting for?'"

Twain began performing when she was 8 years old, singing in bars at the insistence of her mother to earn extra money for her family.

She told The Sun in 2020, "Before I even graduated from high school, I’d done years of singing Top 40 country, Top 40 rock, folk, every genre."

Money remained tight, and Twain and her family often went hungry.

Twain began her performing career at just 8 years old, singing in bars in her native Canada. (Michael Tighe/Donaldson Collection/Getty Images)

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"It was an event in our house to have a grocery day," she told The Daily Mail. "Sometimes two to three weeks would go by without groceries. We’d be down to moldy bread, whatever the absolute bare minimum would be. If there was only mustard in the fridge, we would just put mustard on the bread and take that to school."

In a "Nightline" interview, the singer noted that when it came to attending school, "It's very hard to concentrate when your stomach's rumbling."

"I would certainly never have humiliated myself enough to reach out and ask for help and say, 'You know, I'm hungry. Can I have that apple that you're not going to eat?'" she remembered. "I didn't have the courage to do that."

Late nights performing at bars also took their toll. According to The Daily Mail, Twain wasn’t allowed to perform while alcohol was being served, but after last call, between midnight and 1 a.m., she could go on.

"It was an event in our house to have a grocery day," Twain said of her impoverished family's struggles. (Getty Images)

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"It was uncomfortable. It was loud. It was smoky – like, really smoky. Always smelly, you know? Beer and alcohol – stale alcohol," the "Still the One" singer recalled. 

She would often return home at 2 a.m. and wake up for school just a few hours later.

"I developed a little broken, I think," Twain said during an episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show" last year, recalling drunk adults "falling all over" her while being in nightclubs at age 8 and "just being put in situations that were very unnatural." 

"I loved what I was doing, I mean, I loved music, so I was torn," she continued. "I had this passion for music and I thought, ‘Well, I guess this is, if you have a passion for music, this is the way you do it.’"

In an interview on "The Drew Barrymore Show," Twain said she "developed a little broken" from her childhood experiences. (Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)

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The money she brought in did little to ease the abuse she and her family faced at the hands of her stepfather, Jerry Twain. 

"They would get violent. It would be a fight, which was very dangerous and very traumatic for everybody in the house. It was not unusual to have the police show up at the door in the middle of the night. So, yeah! A lot of mixed feelings about my mother wanting to have the next Tanya Tucker!" Twain said of witnessing violence against her mother, Sharon.

Jerry also sexually abused Twain, leaving her with "this cringey horrible wanting to escape being in my own skin." 

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Twain said, "I hid myself. Because, oh my gosh, it was terrible – you didn’t want to be a girl in my house." 

Twain said her stepfather's abuse left her with "this cringey horrible wanting to escape being in my own skin." (Getty Images)

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She also revealed, "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," she said.

The abuse began around the time Twain was 10, which is also the age she started writing songs, telling The Daily Mail, "Whenever I’m going through something difficult in my life, I tend to process those times through writing." 

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She added, "The purpose, I guess, is the joy and the relief that it brings me. It’s like how kids do coloring."

Twain eventually moved out of the home and was pursuing her career when Sharon and Jerry died in a car accident, leaving her responsible for her younger siblings.

Twain had to take responsibility for her younger siblings after her mother and stepfather died in a car accident. (Jim Spellman/WireImage)

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"When you’ve been through the reality of losing people close to you so shockingly, it stays with you," she told The Daily Mail. "It really can happen any time, anywhere, anyhow."

She continued, "So when my parents died I came back home and kept us together. My older sister had gotten married and started her own family. So, it was the four of us, living together for three years."

As she told Barrymore on her show, "All of a sudden I’m responsible for making decisions about my parents’ mortgage. I didn’t know they had a mortgage, I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know anything about how they ran their business or debts or insurance. I had to learn overnight. My parents died – three days later I’m in lawyers' offices and insurance company offices."

Twain was able to support herself and her siblings by performing at a local resort, and moved to Nashville to become the Twain everyone loves and knows today.

Twain said that she had to "learn overnight" how to handle her family's finances and be in charge. (DVT/Star Max/GC Images)

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But she admitted she struggled with anger in the background.

"I’ve been angry… but I’ve always been a very productive person," she told The Daily Mail. "I don’t think I’ve ever had anger issues."

"I don’t take credit for overcoming anger. I don’t even take credit for not holding a grudge. It’s just part of my character. There were many times when I was a girl or a young woman and intimidated by a man… I didn’t want to go to a bar and sing to a bunch of drunk men. But [even though] I was a child, I wasn’t going to throw a tantrum," she added.

In 2020, Twain celebrated 25 years of her breakthrough album, "The Woman in Me."

Twain admitted she's been "angry" about her childhood, "but I’ve always been a very productive person." (David Crotty/Patrick McMullan)

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"I certainly had no idea during the making of 'The Woman In Me' that it would be such a pivotal moment in my life and in my career," Twain told Fox News Digital at the time. "It changed everything. I had no idea what to expect as far as if it would succeed at all and then when it did start to succeed, of course [I had] no idea that it would come to this – 25 years later I would be celebrating a diamond edition."

"The Woman In Me" contained four number-one country hits, including "Any Man of Mine," which crossed into the pop charts. The record was certified diamond, meaning the album has been purchased well over 10 million times.

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"I'm just really grateful. I mean, wow," Twain added. "At the time, when it was happening, when I was starting to experience success with that album, I got so busy that I couldn't even celebrate the successes in the moment. So it's only now that I'm really celebrating what was going on then."

Twain’s celebration has continued since the anniversary, culminating in an ongoing Las Vegas residency which will resume in August.  

Twain will be resuming her Las Vegas residency in August. (George Pimentel/Getty Images)

"It's going to be a party," she told Fox News Digital in February. "It's high energy, a lot of interaction. I really want to get up close and personal with the audience, so you'll see a lot of that."

She will be performing at Planet Hollywood's Bakkt Theater from August to December 2024.