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Shania Twain

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Q&A with Shania Twain on her book "From This Moment On."

 

(Q) :What made you decide to put all of these stories into a book?
 
(Shania Twain) : Well what compelled me to document my life story was a moment of anxiety, feeling the urgency to hurry up and get all the truth down and the whole, full story in case tomorrow never came. I wanted my son to have my story from me in case that were to happen as it did happen for me with my mother dying prematurely and now she's not around to fill in the blanks for me and that's difficult sometimes. So that was one reason.

And then the other reason which is another layer of the whole purpose behind the book, and that it making it into an actual book and releasing it to the public. That really has a more complicated purpose. For one to force me out of my comfort zone and do something that I've never done before, which is share my private life with the public. I've been extremely private not only in my public life but also in my personal life. There are a lot of people in my family and a lot of my friends that have known me my whole life that will learn things for the first time about me in the autobiography.

I've just been very, very closed and almost too extreme, and that has suppressed my self expression a lot and really manifested in literally squashing my voice and my expression. So I figured it's time to do something about that and go almost to the other end of the spectrum and the other extreme so I can find a balance somewhere when I get on the other side of it.
 
(Q) : Looking at you now we see you as this wonderful singer and this very successful person. When you guys read the beginning of the book you will read about her childhood, which I found it was heartbreaking and shocking, and to know you live through it and that was all you knew. If you read a little bit there are a couple of lines in here that you say "There were plenty of times when the Twain family didn't have enough to eat, lacked warm clothes in frigid Northern Ontario winters, and lived in cramped, rented apartments or a house with no heat. The perpetual undertow of financial instability took its toll in other ways." You describe the poverty and it just wounded wrenching. How did you manage to live through that period?
 
(Shania Twain) : It's challenging growing up in a home where you're not provided for properly, where the tension builds because of that and as a result of economic struggle. You learn to hide it well.
 
(Q) : How did you hide it?

(Shania Twain) : For example, if you know you're not going to have groceries for a week or two that is not a good period to invite your friends over after school. It's a lot of common sense and you really learn how to dodge things and stay under that radar. A lot of abused kids and neglected kids, neglected women and abused women they really learn how to stay under that radar and you learn these coping skills and survival skills because you don't want anybody to know.

First of all, you're ashamed, you're protective of your family, you don't want them to get into trouble, and you get really good at this. I got really good at this and carried those skills on right up through the time I wrote this book, long after my childhood was over, long after my parents were gone and into my career years. And I just have to quit that and I'm forcing myself through this process and so the book is helping a great deal. And I hope I reach out to other people who do the same.
 
(Q) : The great thing about this book too is when she talks about a time in her life that she struggled she gives little lessons for other people who are going through it. Lots of takeaways, which I like. When you describe the abuse between your parents it was very poignant, and you said a lot of people are going to be reading for the first time things they didn't know about you. This one really struck me; Jerry, your stepdad had your mom on the bathroom floor by the toilet. "Grabbing her hair he slammed her head against the side of the basin knocking her out cold.

I could see Jerry repeatedly plunge my mother's head into the toilet bowl and put it out again. I remember wondering why is he trying to drown her when she's already dead? My mother was limp and lifeless. I cried for her and felt completely humiliated and helpless." Having to endure what we're reading here just sounds heartbreaking. What kind of tools did you use?
 
(Shania Twain) : It's sheer trauma and I struggled for a long time. This is why I struggled about releasing the book to the public and certainly will make sure that my son reads it at an appropriate age. But what I felt was I know that I’m not the only kid that has seen their mother killed by their father. I know I'm not the only child that's gone through these things. I know my mother is not the only woman that has gone through these things. And yet I felt so alone at the time.

I know there are a lot of women out there and children out there and families in general struggling that do feel alone. Nobody knows about what's going on behind closed doors, and I just feel compelled to go into detail and say not only do I understand you but this is why I understand you. I know, and I hope that this not only helps them feel that suffering does not discriminate first of all between wealth, fame, and the ordinary person, but it is also something that is happening to a lot more people than we realize, and so it's also about awareness.
 
(Q) : It's interesting because you even talk a little bit about your mom, and you said when she was going out she asked you to apply foundation to her face to cover the blotchy patches, and you'd style her hair with a curling iron and Final Net hairspray, which everyone used then. Did you guys talk about the abuse? Did your mom ever discuss it with you or was it sort of the unspoken thing in the room?
 
(Shania Twain) : We never spoke about it. When an episode happened it was over, it was done, and the next day you all get up and you hope off to school like nothing ever did happen. Partly that is because you really do just want to forget about it and put it behind you and hope that never happens again, although you know that it will, or you live with the instability and the concern that it will. And there's that shame.

I never even spoke to my siblings about it for all those years. I don't really know what they think to a large degree. Some of them are very sensitive about it, which I completely understand. My sister Carrie, she's one person that I've been able to talk to about it now just during the course of writing the book. So we hadn't talked about it in prior years at all.
 
(Q) : Both your parents I guess ironically died together in a car accident. On that day Shania what did you lose that day?
 
(Shania Twain) : I felt like my foundation had been ripped out from under me. And even though we had such a turbulent life and it was unstable off and on throughout the years you still need your parents for as long as you can possibly have them. That's just my personal feeling, at least I did. I was just starting to get to know my mother just on a one to one basis, and I really felt ripped off, to be honest. That's how I felt.
 
(Q) : How old were you when she died?
 
(Shania Twain) : I was 22.

(Q) : So at that age it was I guess your responsibility to take care of your siblings. You became sort of the mom of the house. You're still trying to find yourself and figure out how you can make a living; how are you taking care of other kids?
 
(Shania Twain) : Because my mother had gone in and out of depression for so many years during my childhood I assumed that role often. It wasn't a new role to me in my life and in the lives of my siblings, but now I have to also provide in a very concrete and full-time way. So I had to completely gear my life to taking care of the household completely and on my own for the first time. So I just moved back in with the kids, we all lived together, and I did my best. I sacrificed whatever it was I had to sacrifice and we managed.
 
(Q) : You started singing at what age?
 
(Shania Twain) : I started singing very, very young as far as just singing goes. My earliest memories of singing or using my voice are at three years old. I started singing for audiences from the age of eight years old and then was technically professional by the time I was 11. Paying taxes.
 
(Q) : So you were singing, that's who you were making your living when you were supporting the rest of your siblings?
 
(Shania Twain) : Exactly. I was able to get a singing job that wasn't mobile. Normally if you're a club singer or a live performer you've got to move around, you've got to go to the work. And it was a very rare opportunity to be able to have a full-time singing job in one place where I could take care of the kids and run the house.
 
(Q) : We should describe what this place was like, because it was not easy. She makes everything seem easier than it was. I'm reading the book and it says…
 
(Shania Twain) : That's what my sister says all the time.
 
(Q) : You do. It says "I found a newly built bungalow just outside of town about 10 minutes up a dirt road in the middle of the bush. By the fall I figured we'd find something better. We'd have to, as the bungalow had no running water and therefore no functioning toilets either. That meant hiking down to the river to haul five gallon jugs of water back to the house. The brush out back had to suffice as the loo and the poo." And that's what she wrote on page 195. Going home to that after a hard day's work and trying to be supportive to your siblings; describe how you managed to juggle that.
 
(Shania Twain) : It wasn't so shocking and we were very capable. I'm not saying that it was easy, but when you already come from a childhood of being resourceful, having to be resourceful, making things work, finding a way all the time, it wasn't as challenging as it sounds or maybe to the average person. So we were used to hauling water and using the bush for our bathroom. We didn't have a shower either so we had to jump in the river and that was our shower. We were used to living in a rustic environment, it wasn't a shock, but it certainly wasn't ideal.
 
(Q) : You ended up getting married and I think there are a lot of women who are going to relate to this back half of the book, which starts on page 350, which is where I started. I had to go there because if you've been there you want to read this portion of the book. Everyone's been through some difficult times in their marriages and you were married for 12 years?
 
(Shania Twain) : 14 years.
 
(Q) : You were married for 14 years and a lot of us have been through a time when our spouse allegedly has an affair. That's hard enough, when you find that out. When you find out the person he's actually having the affair with is a good friend of yours it's sort of a double blow. Describe how you found out about that.
 
(Shania Twain) : It's always so much easier to write for me than it is to speak. I've always expressed myself more easily in writing because I can reflect, I can rewrite it, I can scratch it out, start again, and when you're speaking it's just got to flow. And when you're faced with a difficult question it's not that it's any more difficult than any other subjects, but it's just more current so maybe a little bit closer to the bone. How I found out, Fred explained to me over the phone, gave me a call and said "I think there's something you need to know about Marie-Anne and your husband.

If you already know then I'll stop right here and that's it, and you tell me if you want to know more." He really respected my wishes there. My opportunity to say "I don't want to know" or "I'll find out for myself." I said "Okay, listen. Why don't you come over then and we'll talk about it?" Actually, he said "I really think I need to explain to you in person and not over the phone." And so he came over and he told me that he had discovered them having an affair a few weeks prior, and was that whole time stressing, because it was during Easter, just after Easter that he told me.

So through Easter we were all having dinner together, the kids were playing together, we were all hanging out like everything was normal, and Fred just couldn't stand it. He just couldn't stand the fact that I was the only one that didn't know. I so appreciate that he turned the lights on for me.
 
(Q) : What Shania says repeatedly in her book is "It's difficult to talk about these personal things," and this is one of the lines in here, "It is all extremely personal stuff and I question myself often about whether or not to include this in the book, as it is against my nature to open up like this. But since having a traitor in your midst is such a difficult thing to recognize, especially when he or she is so good at it, it makes you wonder if that person has somehow been professionally trained. It's helpful and almost a responsibility for someone with experience to warn others."

And then this is interesting too. Shania says "I confided to her that Mutt had grown distant up to a point where I felt our marriage was in trouble. Marie had always listened attentively and offered sensible, objective advice. After all, although she was my friend she'd known my husband longer than she'd known me. It was highly unusual for me to talk to anybody about my personal life, especially my marriage."
So you could understand why it was so painful, because there was another trust broken. But what I love about you, you're like the resilient woman of all time. You and Marie's husband Fred, who we love because he was on the "Today" show with us as well, have found a connection together. Describe finding love again, because a lot of women wish they could and hope they will.
 
(Shania Twain) : Well you have to be open to it, first of all. Somebody asked me a couple of days ago "Did you fall in love with Fred because he saved you?" And I paused for a second and I had to sort that out in my mind because that didn't sound right, it wasn't right. I said "No, I fell in love with Fred when I realized…" How did I say it? Because I said it so well the other day. There are a million reasons why I fell in love with Fred, and it was a process and I resisted it, I resisted love, I resisted being in the company of a man, I resisted trust.

But I had to decide to save myself first, and saving myself meant allowing Fred to love me in the first place and allowing myself to love again. I actually saved myself. Nobody else can save you; you have to be open to be saved in the first place, which is a big part of my problem all through my life. "I don't need help, I'm fine. I'll manage." And that's just childhood training, trying to stand on my own, pretending like everything's okay, and trying not to be discovered. It's that vulnerability that you're trying to hide all the time and you learn very well when you grow up in a home like mine.
 
(Q) : Do you feel differently after you've written the book? Because I know you're going to see people actually carrying this around in their bag, and knowing that they're going to sort of know you very intimately. Do you feel better?
 
(Shania Twain) : It's scary for me. It was a relief to write the book, it was therapeutic to get it all down, but then it came to making the decision to share it and that's the scary part. I know that it will affect a lot of people when they read it, I hope it affects them positively, I hope it inspires them. So it's scary. I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm uncomfortable doing this part of it, and that's part of the whole healing. I’m saying "Okay, I've got to go that far to find a healthy level of privacy and self expression."
 
(Q) : By the way, which makes you love her all the more. When it's so difficult for someone to give information you value it more, that's what I'm noticing as I'm reading this. Every nugget I value more because I know how difficult it was for it to come out of you. There are certain people who just blurt out their life, and I even know from interviewing you it's not easy, because sometimes we have to pull a little bit with Shania because she doesn't volunteer everything, and it's much, much, much more valuable that way.
 
(Shania Twain) : The big question I'm getting is "Why now? Why are you doing this?" because they know me as being such a private person. I explain why more thoroughly in the book, but it's a phase and not a new me, for example, if I can say it like that. I'm always going to remain a very private person. I like to be secluded, I like to be isolated, I'm very creative that way, but in a positive way, it's not a negative thing for me.

I enjoy that time. It helps me cope with the more public times. I need that balance or I'll go crazy. I might have actually gone crazy a couple of times when I think about it. So I just need to find that balance and this is all part of the process.
 
(Q) : What is the biggest difference between writing a song and then writing your book, or what's the biggest similarity?
 
(Shania Twain) : That's a very good question. It's all creative writing. Writing songs is a lot harder as far as just providing aspect goes, because you've got to condense a whole story and theme less than four minutes, and it's really hard to do. Isn't in Van Gough who said to his sister that "I don't have time to write a short letter"? And that is very true.

It takes a lot more thought to get your point across, make sense, and then apply music to it and still have it make sense at the end of it. So writing a book, a lot more time to tell your story and express yourself and in that sense a bit easier.
 
(Q) : You said you have dysphonia. Are you going for speech therapy and all that? Are they working towards a goal of getting you back to singing?
 
(Shania Twain) : Dysphonia is a condition where the muscles constrict the voice box, to make it simple. It's not a question of the vocal cords; the vocal cords are apparently in excellent condition, so I'm very happy about that. So I should very well be able to sing again someday in whatever way I want to. The process though can be quite long, and it's a combination of physiotherapy, speech therapy, vocal exercises, and it's also a psychological exercise because then I have to build my confidence back again to actually believe that I can do it even once I'm physically better. So it's a rehabilitation.
 
(Q) : What is the one piece of advice or motto or theme that you want your son to get from this?
 
(Shania Twain) : What I would like any son or any child to get from this is the power of the written word and the beauty of the written word. I have to say that it is less spontaneous than speaking, it's a more thoughtful process, and I so appreciate that. I appreciate old fashioned letter writing. I'm actually loving email because it's more old fashioned than we realize. We sit and we think, we contemplate and we change the words. We're learning how to spell again! I'm a terrible speller so it's great for me.

But I love writing and it's a wonderful way to express yourself. A lot of people say a lot of the expression gets lost when you're writing through mails. There is an art to writing, and if you find it you find the way to express yourself through the written word and really use the language as a magical tool I think you can even say more. I think it's a very special way of expressing yourself.
 
End.