Shania Twain, 57, Opens Up About Being Sexually Abused By Her Stepfather – ‘He Would Fondle Me’

While appearing on the “TODAY” show on Thursday morning, the singer Shania Twain could not help but become emotional as she opened up about being sexually abused by her stepfather when she was a child.

Twain Discusses Sexual Abuse

Daily Mail reported that Twain, 57, went on “TODAY” to promote her new album “Queen Of Me,” but the conversation soon shifted to Twain’s stepfather Jerry allegedly sexually abusing her as a child as she explained why she had long been embarrassed by her own body. Twain never knew her biological father, and both her mother and stepfather were killed in a car crash in 1987. 

Twain explained to host Hoda Kotb that she decided to pose nude on the album’s cover as a way of dealing with the abuse her stepfather put her through decades ago. 

“I’m the boss of me,” Twain defiantly said.

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

‘This Is Who I Am’

“It’s really about saying I was abused as a kid,” Twain explained. “My stepfather would fondle me up on the top and make me go without a shirt and I was already maturing. This cringy horrible wanting to escape being in my own skin.”

“It’s time to start loving myself in my own skin and really embracing that and not being embarrassed of it or shy of it. This is who I am,” she added. “Loving who you are. I’m my own royalty. I’m the boss of me, and I’m responsible for the decisions I make, for what I say, for what I do. It’s a statement of self-confidence that I’ve grown into more over the last few year.”

That’s why Twain decided to go fully nude when it came time to do the photoshoot for her latest album.

“I did a whole shoot as part of the album artwork where I’m completely nude and it was really scary, but it was sort of like, you know, I don’t really love my body,” she said. “I don’t love looking at myself in the mirror with the lights on or looking at the mirror at all at my body. So I said listen, I’m gonna face that fear.”

Check out Twain’s full comments on this in the video below.

Related: Shania Twain Talks Posing Nude At 57

Twain’s Previous Comments On Sexual Abuse

Twain first revealed to the world that she had been sexually abused by her stepfather back in 2018.

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

Twain went on to say that she was only around 10 years of age when the abuse began.

“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,” she continued. “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.'”

While it’s horrific to think that Twain had to suffer through sexual abuse, we’re glad to see that she appears to have come out the other side and finally found confidence in her body. You can find out more about Twain’s journey to finding love for herself when her album drops on February 3!