Shania Twain reveals she was kicked around by parents

Shania Twain reveals she grew up in a “very violent” Ontario home where she and her sisters were physically abused by their parents. Speaking on NPR’s Wild Card, the country star said she was “smacked around” and “literally kicked around,” recalling trauma that felt “like a really bad thunderstorm.”

Key Takeaways

• Twain said her childhood home with mom Sharon and stepdad Jerry Twain was “very violent.”
• She and sisters Jill and Carrie Ann were “kicked around” and witnessed fierce parental fights.
• She shared the details on Thursday’s episode of NPR’s “Wild Card with Rachel Martin.”
• She previously detailed abuse in her 2011 memoir and a 2018 Guardian interview.
• Sharon and Jerry died in a 1987 car crash near Wawa, Ontario, when Twain was 22.

What did Shania Twain say about her childhood home?

In a candid Page Six report on her NPR appearance, the “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” singer, 60, described growing up in Ontario as her mom, Sharon, and stepdad, Jerry Twain, fought often and “got violent often.”

“They loved each other. They went through so many ups and downs together, but they fought a lot,” she told host Rachel Martin. Asked whether the violence reached her and her sisters, the Grammy winner answered, “Yeah, with me too.”

“If I was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, definitely,” Twain said. “Both my parents were pretty harsh physically. We definitely got smacked around a lot, and kicked around sometimes, literally kicked around.”

How violent was life inside the Twain household?

Twain said her parents “hurt each other the most,” recalling that her mother would lose clumps of hair and was often bruised in the face. The house itself felt under siege: “Our house would shake. Those walls would shake.”

“It’s very traumatic. It gets loud and scary, like a really bad thunderstorm,” she said. Her mother repeatedly tried to leave, and the family sometimes did, but Jerry “would always find us,” or Sharon “would always give in and go back.” Twain called it “a cycle.”

Born Eilleen Edwards, she was 2 when Sharon divorced her biological father, Clarence Edwards. Jerry later adopted Shania and her sisters. Sharon and Jerry were killed in a head-on crash near Wawa, Ontario, on Nov. 1, 1987, as Twain’s music career was beginning.

Has Shania Twain spoken about this abuse before?

Yes. She wrote extensively about her childhood in her 2011 memoir “From This Moment On,” alleging Jerry physically and emotionally abused her for years and that she watched him repeatedly beat her mother. She recalled hitting him with a chair as he attacked Sharon, after which he punched her in the jaw.

Twain has also said Jerry sexually abused her beginning when she was 10. She told the Guardian in 2018 that sexual abuse “goes hand in hand with the physical and psychological abuse” from someone you know, and that she “learned to block it out.”

Also Thursday, she told People that open communication has sustained her 15-year marriage to Frédéric Thiébaud. For more celebrity headlines, visit our Celebrity Breaking News hub.