Shania Twain Reveals She Flattened Her Breasts To Save Herself From Being Sexually Abused By Her Stepfather

The country music star Shania Twain has revealed that when she was a young girl, she would flatten her breasts to try and avoid being sexually abused by her stepfather.

‘I Would Flatten My Boobs’

Daily Mail reported that Twain, 57, grew up in poverty in Ontario, Canada with her four siblings, her mother Sharon, and her stepdad Jerry Twain. Sadly, Jerry sexually abused her and her siblings, and she would do anything she could to try and make herself not be noticed at home.

“I hid myself and I would flatten my boobs,” Twain said. “I would wear bras that were too small for me, and I’d wear two, play it down until there was nothing girl about me. Make it easier to go unnoticed.”

“Because, oh my gosh, it was terrible — you didn’t want to be a girl in my house,” she added. 

Things got even worse as Twain got older and started to experience similar things out in society.

“But then you go into society and you’re a girl and you’re getting the normal other unpleasant stuff too, and that reinforces it,” she continued. “So then you think, ‘Oh, I guess it’s just sh***y to be a girl. Oh, it’s so sh***y to have boobs.’ I was ashamed of being a girl.”

Related: Shania Twain Talks Posing Nude At 57

Twain Opens Up About Being Sexually Abused

In a previous interview with The Guardian, Twain revealed that her stepfather started abusing her when she was 10 years-old. 

“Uh huh, uh huh. I’m not going to go into details about it,” she said in 2018. “I don’t mind saying it, because I do think it’s important that people understand you can survive these things.”

“I feel the sexual abuse goes hand in hand with the physical and psychological abuse when it’s somebody you know. I learned to block it out,” Twain added at the time. “Abusers need to manipulate you, whether it’s before or after, and what I said to myself is: ‘OK, there’s something wrong with this person and that person is not well.'”

Jerry and Sharon died in a car crash back in 1987. After they passed away, Twain began singing at a resort hotel to make money for her family. 

“All of a sudden it was like, well, what’s your problem?” she recalled. “You know, you’re a woman and you have this beautiful body? What was so natural for other people was so scary for me.”

Related: Shania Twain Reveals Awkward Dinner With Oprah Went Off The Rails Over Differing Views On Religion

Twain Felt ‘Exploited’

Twain then said that while she felt “exploited,” she also felt like she “didn’t have a choice.”

“I had to play the glamorous singer, had to wear my femininity more openly or more freely,” she explained, according to ABC News. “And work out how I’m not gonna get groped, or raped by someone’s eyes, you know, and feel so degraded.”

It wasn’t until Twain was in her mid-20s that she began to “[want] to grow into” and “appreciate” her body.

“By the time I had my record contracts I was the kind of woman that … when I walked in the room, it’s like, don’t even get any closer,” she said. “It was clear in my body language. And I think maybe what young girls can learn too is to exude that confidence.”

While it’s heartbreaking that Twain was sexually abused by her stepfather, we applaud her for going public with her story and being an inspiration to others who may be in a similar situation. We’re glad that Twain appears to have overcome this traumatic experience, and that she seems to be in a good space mentally today!