Shania Twain made headlines this week for saying she would have voted for Donald Trump if she could vote in the 2016 election, overshadowing a much more shocking revelation that was made in her interview with The Guardian.
During the same sit-down, the Canadian pop-country star revealed that she was sexually and physically abused by her stepfather during her childhood.
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In her memoir, the 52-year-old detailed years of abuse she and her mother Sharon suffered at the hands of Jerry Twain, including one incident where an 11-year-old Shania grabbed a chair and smashed it across her stepfather’s back.
While she didn’t go into much more detail about the abuse in her Guardian interview, she claimed that Jerry abused her “physically and psychologically” — and, “oh yes, sexually.”
She explained:
“Uh huh, uh huh. I’m not going to go into details about it. I don’t mind saying it, because I do think it’s important that people understand you can survive these things.”
Shania didn’t mention the sexual abuse in her book, but added in the interview that she thinks certain forms of abuse go hand in hand:
“[The abuse started] around the age of 10. I feel the sexual abuse goes hand in hand with the physical and psychological abuse when it’s somebody you know. I learned to block it out. Abusers need to manipulate you, whether it’s before or after, and what I said to myself is: ├óΓé¼╦£OK, there’s something wrong with this person and that person is not well.'”
The music icon went on to say she put up with the years of abuse to keep her family together:
“I did feel sorry for myself a lot as a kid. It was either go to Children’s Aid and get saved now or … I weighed it up and thought: ├óΓé¼╦£If I go to Children’s Aid, we’ll all get separated,’ and I just couldn’t bear that, so we all stayed together for better or for worse.”
It’s also why she started writing songs as a young girl — “to escape” her miserable reality. She confessed:
“When you’re hungy you can’t do anything about it but distract yourself from the hunger. And [writing songs] really works. It’s therapeutic. A lot of kids play with dolls and I played with words and sounds.”
Shania’s stepfather and mother died in a car crash in 1987. She did not know her biological father.
[Image via WENN.]
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