Canadian country star Shania Twain opened up about her complex relationship with her body. (Image: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images for ZFF)
Shania Twain might be a country music queen these days, but the Canadian singer struggled tremendously in her younger years.
Twain, 57, spoke candidly to The Sunday Times about the struggles she would go to during her pre-adolescent years to hide her changing body. Growing up with a physically and sexually abusive stepfather, Twain viewed her eventual aging into her teens as a threat.
“I hid and flattened my breasts. I would wear bras that were too small for me and I would wear two, downplaying it until there was nothing girly about me anymore. Make it easier to go unnoticed. Because, oh my god, it was awful — you didn’t want to be a girl in my house,” Twain told the paper. “But then you go out into society and you’re a girl and you also get the normal other awkward stuff and that reinforces it. Then you’re like, ‘Oh, I guess it’s just awesome to be a girl. Oh, it’s so cool to have boobs.’ I was ashamed to be a girl.”
At the age of 22, her parents had died in a car accident, leaving Twain to raise her three younger siblings. However, her relationship with her body did not improve and she continued to feel “taken advantage of”.
“All of a sudden it was like, well, what’s your problem? Do you know you are a woman and you have this beautiful body? What was so natural to others was so frightening to me. I felt used, but I had no choice now. I had to play the glamorous singer, had to wear my femininity more openly or freely. And find out how I don’t get groped by someone or raped, you know, and feel so humiliated,” the singer said.
In her 20s, Twain gained a sense of confidence and used her body language to send the message “Don’t even come close” as she entered the room. But she found she liked her body and “wanted to grow into it, appreciate it.”
“I’ve never been an exhibitionist to say, you know, ‘Look at my tits.’ It was really me coming to myself. It was kind of a metamorphosis,” said Twain, who hopes younger girls can learn to exude the same confidence.
The story goes on
These days, Twain says she “celebrates” her own confidence in her songs, her fashion choices, her body language, and her performances.
“I’m celebrating escaping this awful state of not wanting to be who I am. And I’m so confident. Now that I’ve discovered it’s okay to be a girl,” she shared. “The uncompromising woman is indeed a very powerful person.”
In recent years, Twain has done her best to talk about body positivity. Last month, she teamed up with singer Jax to share a video of the two lip-synching to Jax’s hit song “Victoria’s Secret,” Yahoo previously reported. The song calls out the notorious lingerie company and inspires women to love their bodies.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 with free, anonymous help for survivors. 800.656.HOPE (4673) and online.rainn.org.
For anyone affected by abuse who needs assistance, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or if you cannot speak confidently, log on to thehotline.org or text with LOVEIS to 22522.
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