Shania Twain Opens Up About Ex-Husband Cheating On Her With Her Best Friend

The country music star Shania Twain went through a truly devastating experience back in 2008, when her marriage to Robert “Mutt” Lange fell apart after she learned that he was having an affair with her best friend Marie-Anne Thiébaud. In a new interview, the 57 year-old singer is opening up about just how difficult this ordeal was for her.

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Twain Deals With Ex-Husband’s Affair

“I don’t think that a lot of things that happened to me since my divorce should have been so hard on me,” Twain said according to People Magazine. “I should have been less naive about life’s ups and downs. Maybe I’m too much, like, ‘That’s all behind me.'”

Twain went on to say that all these years later, the fallout is “not embarrassing.”

Twain later bonded with Thiébaud’s husband former Nestlé exec Frédéric Thiébaud over their shared pain, eventually becoming so close to him that they married on New Year’s Day 2011. She explained in her latest interview that she did not become close to him until after her divorce from Lange.

“I did not get close to Fred at all, we didn’t have each other’s numbers,” she explained. “He was not really part of our daily lives because he was working these crazy hours. A lot of travel [for his] very high-profile company, just suit and tie and so he would be around, like, weekend dinners and stuff like that — we would all eat together and that was it.”

“It would be mostly him and Mutt chatting, so I didn’t really know Fred very well,” she continued. “I guess it was a beautiful surprise to then see how gracefully and graciously he was dealing with navigating the same pain.”

Related: Shania Twain Reveals Why She Likes To Look At Herself ‘Naked’ At 57

Twain Felt ‘Stupid’ After The Affair

Twain went on to say that Frédéric handled the news of the affair far better than she did at the time.

“He was so thoughtful about it all… It was not cool with him, but he was smarter about it. I was uncontrollably fragile over it, which I had never felt before ever because I thought for once I was stable,” she recalled. “I really believe that I’m safe, so that really devastated me I think more than any other instability I’ve ever felt.”

While Twain felt “stupid” after she learned about the affair, the fact that Frédéric had been fooled too made her feel better about it. 

“Fred’s so smart. This is one of the smartest people I know, he didn’t know either,” said Twain. “That helped me feel better… Neither of us saw it coming … I allowed myself to trust too much … I did let my guard down too much.”

“I was angry, though,” she continued. “The anger comes a lot from my childhood too because I’m thinking, ‘Man, you can do anything to me, but if you f—ing lie, like, right to my f—ing face? Now, I’m so angry.’ It wasn’t just, ‘Infidelity happens.’ That was not me. I spun around in that for quite a while. That was the hardest part to let go of really — the anger.”

Related: Shania Twain Talks Posing Nude At 57

Twain Doesn’t Speak To Ex-Husband

Though Twain shares a 21 year-old son with Lange, who is still with her former friend, the singer does not speak to him.

“Mutt and I parent well together — for people who don’t talk to each other,” she said. “We’ll just text. We both love our son so much, so we don’t play any games like that. We have the same priority, we share spaces for him. No nonsense there. I think everyone gets what they deserve … I got what I deserve, I got the greatest man on the planet.”

We can’t imagine how difficult it was for Twain to learn that her husband was having an affair with her best friend. While we’re sorry that she had to go through that, we’re glad to see that she’s come out the other side in such a beautiful way!