Shania Twain has spoken openly about the death of her parents, who both tragically died in a head-on car collision, which left the singer caring for her younger siblings
Shania Twain has opened up about the death of her parents(Image: Billboard via Getty Images)
Shania Twain has revealed she “wasn’t allowed to grieve” after the death of her parents. The country legend was just 22-years-old when her parents, Sharon and Jerry, were killed in a head-on car crash with a lorry in 1987.
At the time of the crash, Shania was living in Toronto and had been studying computer programming when her sister phoned her with the shattering news. In a new interview, the singer, 60, explained that she “collapsed” when she was told the news over the phone.
“My sister called me, and I could hear my little brother howling in the background,” she said. After the death of her mum, Sharon, and dad, Jerry, who adopted Shania when she was four, the singer took on the primary role of being the carer of her three younger siblings.
Speaking to Lauren Laverne on Desert Island Discs, she went on to say: “The kids could not be separated after that accident – they had to stay together.” After her parents’ death, Shania also became responsible for their business affairs.
She explained that she had to leave Toronto and return to the family home where she and the children had grown up. Shania said: “My older sister was gone and was married with two children and had her own life in another town. I had to do a lot of things I knew nothing about, like take out a second mortgage for the house to sustain what is going to happen next.”
Shania later had to organise the sale of equipment from her parents’ business and would often be with lawyers, navigating insurance matters, as the passengers in the car and the lorry driver were suing.
“There were so many complexities to the accident itself,” Shania said, adding: “I wasn’t allowed to grieve because I was thrown into this state of guardianship and executor, plus I don’t have a job.”
She later took a job at a gold resort six hours from her hometown and moved there with her siblings, as the vacancy guaranteed a steady monthly income and allowed her to start singing.
During the interview, Shania also shed light on her parents’ abusive marriage and how she felt the need to “protect” her mother. She said: “It was bad. He would choke her a lot and do things that don’t end well.”
Despite growing up seeing her parents’ abusive marriage, Shania later found happiness and love with record producer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange. The former couple tied the knot in 1993 and in 2001, welcomed their son Eja.
Sadly, they went on to separate seven years later after he had an affair with Shania’s friend, Marie-Anne Thiebaud. It was her husband, Frederic Thiebaud, who Twain said alerted her to the affair.
Speaking about the affair, she said: “I didn’t know anything that was going on, but he then took the blinders off and told me. I didn’t believe him and told him he was imagining things.”
Both Shania and Frederic decided to “let their marriages go”. But despite the heartache, they both found love – with one another. “I found out what a beautiful person he was,” she said, adding that she would “treat him better”.
The couple married one another in 2011, and he recently joined her in the UK as she supported Harry Styles on his record-breaking Together, Together residency at Wembley Stadium. And Shania recently returned to Ontario, where she honed her craft. The singer performed at the legendary Horseshoe Tavern on Friday, admitting it was “pretty surreal”.
Writing on Instagram, she said: “The bars of Ontario are where I cut my teeth learning how to perform, entertain and hold a room… So making my debut last night at the legendary @horseshoetavern all these years later felt pretty surreal and super special… I’ve really made it now!! Thank you, everyone who came, you don’t know what it means to me.”
The full Desert Island Discs episode can be listened to on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4 from Sunday at 10am.
If you have been affected by this story, Cruse Bereavement Support offers free help to make sense of how you are feeling. Click here for their website or call 0808 808 1677.
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