Shania Twain "Was Ashamed Of Being A Girl" And Tried To Flatten Her Breasts To Avoid Stepfather's Abuse
Country-pop sensation Shania Twain has opened up about the abuse she survived as a child and how it shaped her worldview as a woman. She shares how she used to flatten her breasts to avoid confrontation with her stepfather.
Shania Twain's greatest hits include "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" and "You're Still the One," but although her music has always been feel-good, she has gone through quite a few bumps in the road during her career. She recently shared that her first husband, who was a producer she professionally collaborated with for years, cheated on her and the infidelity caused a grief that was "similar intense to losing my parents." She later married the previous husband of the woman who her husband cheated with. Shania is also opening up about the abuse she experienced as a child.
Shania Twain "Was Ashamed of Being a Girl" and Tried to Flatten Her Breasts to Avoid Stepfather's Abuse
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Shania reveals that she survived abuse at the hands of her stepfather when she was a child, and it got so bad that she tried her best to hide her natural female features in order to avoid any altercations.
"I hid myself and I would flatten my boobs," she said. "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. Because, oh my gosh, it was terrible — you didn't want to be a girl in my house."
Shania was one of five siblings growing up in Canada and she recalls getting into physical fights with her stepfather. There was one incident in which she used a chair to fight back against him.
"I think a lot of that was anger, not courage. And it took a long time to manage that anger. You don’t want to be somebody that attacks me on the street," she said. "because I will f*cking rip your head off if I get the chance."
After years of trying to hide her figure, Shania found it difficult to transition into the real world when she was a young woman. She talked about "getting the normal other unpleasant stuff" when you're a woman who is just entering the world, and that reinforced the trauma she experienced as a child.
"I had to play the glamorous singer, had to wear my femininity more openly or more freely. And work out how I'm not gonna get groped, or raped by someone's eyes, you know, and feel so degraded," she said. Shania said the best thing young women can learn to do is walk into a room and "exude that confidence." The older she got, the more she found her own voice and her own style, and that helped her feel safer around men in professional settings.