Shania Twain has revealed that she and her sisters were physically abused during their childhood in Ontario, Canada, describing a home marked by violence and financial hardship.
Speaking on NPR's Wild Card with Rachel Martin podcast, the 60-year-old singer said she and her sisters, Jill and Carrie Ann, were "smacked around a lot, and kicked around sometimes, literally kicked around" by their mother, Sharon, and stepfather, Jerry Twain.
"If I was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, definitely. I mean, both my parents were pretty harsh physically," she said.
A House That Would Shake
Twain said the violence was primarily directed between her parents, who fought frequently amid severe financial hardship, including food scarcity and unpaid utility bills. She described her mother suffering bruises to the face and losing clumps of hair during the worst episodes.
"It was very violent," she said. "Our house would shake. Those walls would shake. It's very traumatic. It gets loud and scary, like a really bad thunderstorm."
She said her mother tried to leave repeatedly but always returned. "My mother did often try to leave. She did leave, we did leave, but he'd always find us, or she'd always give in and go back. It was a cycle," Twain recalled.
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Sharon divorced Twain's biological father, Clarence Edwards, when Twain was two. She later married Jerry, who adopted Twain and her sisters. Both Sharon and Jerry were killed in a head-on car crash near Wawa, Ontario, in November 1987, when Twain was 22.
Prior Disclosures
The interview is not the first time Twain has spoken about her upbringing. In her 2011 memoir From This Moment On, she wrote about trying to intervene during one of Jerry's attacks on her mother, describing how she struck him with a chair and he punched her in the jaw in response. In 2018, she disclosed to The Guardian that Jerry had also sexually abused her beginning around age 10, saying the sexual abuse went hand in hand with the physical and psychological abuse.
Her Current Marriage
Twain also spoke about her 15-year marriage to Swiss businessman Frederic Thiebaud, 55, crediting his willingness to communicate openly as central to their relationship's stability. "He's really good at reminding both of us that we have to keep communication open," she said.
The two met after Twain's split from producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, whose alleged affair with Thiebaud's then-wife, who was also Twain's best friend and assistant, Marie-Anne, ended both their marriages. Twain and Lange's divorce was finalized in 2010; they have a son, Eja, 25. Twain and Thiebaud married on New Year's Day in 2011 in Rincon, Puerto Rico.
Twain's seventh studio album, Little Miss Twain, was released on July 24.
