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Shania Twain, 57, has just bravely spoken openly about how she has dealt with the trauma of alleged physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. The country singer described her experiences with The Sunday Times posted on Dec. 6, and during the chat, she admitted trying to flatten her chest to avoid his attention.
“I hid and flattened my boobs,” Shania confessed. “Because, oh my god, it was awful — you didn’t want to be a girl in my house.”
The “That Doesn’t Impress Me Much” singer was raised by her mother Sharon and stepfather Jerry Twain, who legally adopted her and her four siblings. She has often described her difficult upbringing in the Ontario, Canada area.
Shania had a variety of strategies. “I would wear bras that were too small for me,” she revealed. “And I’d wear two, downplaying it until there was nothing girl about me anymore. Make it easier to go unnoticed.”
Having to hide her body to protect herself was bewildering for Shania as she grew into a young woman. She explained, “…Then you go social and you’re a girl and you also get the normal other awkward things and that reinforces it. Then you’re like, ‘Oh, I guess it just sucks being a girl. Oh it sucks having boobs.’ I was ashamed to be a girl.”
As the star got older, she came into her own and learned to embrace her femininity. “Suddenly it was like, ‘Well, what’s your problem? You know, you’re a woman and you have this beautiful body,” said the “man! I feel like a woman,” the hitmaker said Times from her early days of glory. “What came so naturally to other people was so scary to me. I felt taken advantage of, but I had no choice now.”
For Shania it became a part. “I had to play the glamorous singer, had to wear my femininity more openly or freely,” she said. “And figure out how to not get groped or r**** in someone’s eyes, you know, and feel so humiliated.”