Country superstar Shania Twain has opened up about the alleged sexual abuse she suffered from her stepfather as a child.
In an interview on Thursday “Today” showshe doubled down on her abusive claims in 2018, explaining that her stepfather made her feel ashamed of her body.
Twain, 57, said the low-key photo shoot was a way to put her troubled past behind her while discussing her bold cover art for her Queen of Me album.
“It’s really a way of saying, listen, I was bullied as a child, my father made me go upstairs and leave me shirtless, and I’m already mature,” she said of the nude photo. .
She said she wanted to “run away” from her skin – but now she wants to thrive in it.
“I’m happy in my own skin. This is my only skin, so I have no other choice,” he added. “It’s time to start loving myself in my own skin and really accepting it and not being embarrassed or ashamed of it.”
Despite being “petrified” of posing nude, she found the shoot “powerful”.
“Today” presenter Hoda Kotb touched on the 2022 concert of the “It doesn’t impress me” singer. Netflix documentary“Not Just a Girl,” in which Twain describes her upbringing and home as “violent.”
She recalls that at times she was deprived of food and electricity, and at the age of 20 she lost her mother and stepfather, forcing her to take on the role of raising her siblings.
Twain’s experiences were a “double-edged sword” – adversity made him stronger, but at what cost?
“It has elements of going through all the challenges that make you stronger,” she said. “Surviving makes you stronger, but on the other hand, it makes you insecure.”
You never know it bold, playful photos for her upcoming album, but Twain said she used to flatten her chest to go “ignored” at home.
“I used to hide myself and flatten my chest. I’d wear a bra that was too small for me and I’d wear two and I’d play it until I didn’t have any girls,” Twain told the Sunday Times in December. “Make it easy to ignore. Because, oh my god, it’s it was awful—you didn’t want to be a girl in my house.”
She said the abuse made her hard embrace her femininity and sift out his pent-up anger.
“It took a long time to manage that anger. You don’t want to be the guy on the street attacking me, going, ‘Man! I feel like a woman,” said the singer. “Because I’ll rip your head off if I can.”
Her newfound openness and ability to talk about her injury comes after the five-time Grammy winner denied the details of the meal. In an interview with the Guardian in 2018.
“I was worried that my father had killed my mother,” she said at the time. “I thought they were going to kill each other. My mother was also very violent. Many nights I lay thinking: “Don’t sleep, don’t sleep, wait until they sleep.” And I would wake up and make sure everyone was breathing.
The article refers to her 2011 memoir, From This Moment On, in which she recounts the night her stepfather, Jerry, beat her mother, Sharon, unconscious and put her head in a toilet bowl. According to Twain, he fought back and hit Jerry in the back with a chair, and he punched him in the jaw. He was 11 years old then.
She also claimed that her stepfather abused her “physically and psychologically” and confirmed that she was sexually abused when she was 10 years old, but now refuses to share. Twain did not include it in his book either.
“Uh, yeah, yeah. I don’t want to give detailed information about it,” he said. “I don’t mind saying that because I think it’s important for people to understand that you can survive these things.
“I feel that sexual abuse goes hand in hand with physical and mental abuse, which is who you know. I’ve learned to block it out,” he added. “Nude people have to manipulate you, whether it’s before or after, and I said to myself, ‘Well, there’s something about this person. wrong and it’s not good.”
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer says he never dreamed of becoming a star, only using songwriting as an “escape” from a violent and hungry reality.
“When you’re hungry, there’s nothing you can do about it but distract yourself from the hunger. And it really works. It’s therapeutic,” she said. “A lot of kids play with dolls, and I play with words and sounds.”
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