This kid lived with her abusive stepfather and took care of her siblings after her parents died. Now she’s a famous music star.
A girl from Ontario found strength in music when things at home were hard. Because of a tragedy, she had to care for her family and give up her dreams in order to do so. After many years, her voice, which used to be a private escape, has become an inspiration to people all over the world.
Her family had a hard time meeting their basic needs when she was born in Timmins, Ontario. There wasn’t much she could do about her stepfather’s low-paying job reforestation and her mother’s depression. She quickly learned how to do without because she was one of five kids. Her love of singing helped her feel better.
From a young age, she found escape and self-worth by singing in bars. But she had no idea how hard it would be when she had to raise her siblings by herself when she was so young.
She knew what it was like to live without from a very young age. Her family never had enough money for basic things like food, heat, and even reliable lighting.
She quickly understood that her life was exceptional compared to those of her classmates. She would watch her friends on the way to school without lunch and wonder if they’d leave an apple out so she could take it later.
It would make her feel bad to admit she didn’t have lunch, so she would tell her teacher it was “in her locker” or that she’d “forgotten it.” She used music to escape these harsh realities, especially the constant hunger.
She’d take her guitar and go into the woods to play alone. There, she’d start a small fire and get lost in her music. The tunes made her forget how empty her stomach felt.
Her mother also saw her talent as a way out, so when she was eight years old, she started taking her to sing in bars. She couldn’t legally go into bars where alcohol was being served, so she would perform after midnight, when people had already had a lot of drinks.
For special events earlier in the evening, she had a permit by the time she was eleven, but she wasn’t paid until she was fourteen. That was after she started working at McDonald’s. She called it her “saving grace” because it gave her a paycheck and regular meals, which were things she had always wanted.
She was totally worn out from going to school, working at McDonald’s, and singing in bars every day. She kept going because she loved music so much and hoped that it would one day make her life better.
She had more problems at home than just being poor. The fact that her stepfather legally adopted her and her siblings made her childhood less happy. It was not only mean, but he also abused her, making her daily life full of fear and pain.
She remembers learning how to protect herself from his violence and getting the courage to throw a chair at him one time. “I think a lot of that was anger, not courage,” she said later, talking about how her animal instincts to stay alive clashed with her constant fear.
She felt alone and unsafe in this abusive environment, which hurt her trust and made it hard for her to believe she deserved to be safe or treated with kindness. Unfortunately, the physical abuse wasn’t the only thing that hurt her.
When she was ten years old, she went through a different kind of harm: she was betrayed, which broke her innocence and sense of safety. Her stepfather started to sexually abuse her.
She carried the pain of that trauma in silence for years while keeping the secret of this deeper violation. She only recently felt ready to tell the world her story because she knew how important it was to do so.
Her stepfather died before she could talk to him, so she never got the chance to do so. She would be very sad about this loss, and the man who had hurt her so much would leave her with a lot of unresolved trauma and questions that would never be answered.
At the age of 22, she went through a terrible event that changed the course of her life forever. A car accident killed her mother and stepfather all of a sudden, leaving her to take care of her younger siblings. As the second oldest, she was now in charge of raising them, which was a role she had not planned for.
She wanted to keep her family together, so she got a singing job at a nearby resort hotel. The money from the job let her buy a small house. Her daily schedule was hard. To make money, she would start each day by cutting wood to heat the house, then take her siblings to school, and perform late at night.
She felt pressured to look polished and girly as a singer, which wasn’t something she had thought about before. However, she had to do it for her job now. There were many challenges that came with this public role.
She knew what people expected of her when she performed and worked hard to keep her personal boundaries when everyone was looking at her. She still cared most about taking care of her family.
She started to focus on her music career as her siblings got older and more independent. She hoped that her lifelong talent would lead to something lasting. She sent a demo to several record labels because she was determined to make it big.
Mercury Nashville finally signed her, which made it possible for her to release her first album. This was the first step in her career as a musician. Her singing would now get her noticed in places other than the small clubs she used to go to.
Soon after she signed with the label, she met a famous music producer. He started to work with her and later married her. By combining her unique voice with his co-writing and production skills, they made music that a lot of people could relate to.
Their partnership had a big impact on her career, and because of it, she became famous very quickly. People began hearing her music in huge numbers, something she had only dreamed of before.
She was becoming more and more successful, but years later when she started to lose her voice, it was a big setback. It wasn’t until ten years later that she was finally told she had Lyme disease, which had hurt the nerves in her vocal cords.
She had to stop singing for a long time because of the illness. Even after the surgery went well, her voice had changed and became raspier. She went back to music, happy to have her voice back even though it had changed, and accepted the change.
Her relationship with music producer Robert “Mutt” Lange lasted for fourteen years and led to hit songs, a son named Eja D’Angelo Lange, and a marriage that seemed impossible to end. until she found out Lange had been cheating on her.
Even worse was the fact that he was having an affair with Marie-Anne Thiébaud, who was her close friend and had worked as their secretary. Because she was betrayed twice, she lost trust, and the marriage ended in divorce, which broke her heart.
In the middle of her grief, she found an unexpected ally in Frédéric Thiébaud, who was married to Marie-Anne and had also been caught off guard by the affair. At first, their relationship was based on understanding and pain that they both felt.
But over time, they found comfort in each other, and what started as a friendship turned into something more. In 2011, they got married, which made her feel like her life was starting over and getting better.
As she thought about this chapter, she said that even though being betrayed was painful, she doesn’t feel angry anymore. She also thanks Lange for helping her with her music career and focuses on how their work together made her journey better.
She finally felt stable and at peace after getting married, which gave her the strength to move on with a sense of closure and thanksgiving.
After years of hard times, heartbreak, and sticking with it, this young girl from Timmins, Ontario, has become Shania Twain, a famous singer all over the world.
Her rise from poverty and abuse to becoming a worldwide star shows how strong and determined she is. Through unimaginable hardships, she has found a way to live and do well, leaving behind a model for others to follow.