EXCLUSIVE: Shania Twain Opens Up on Tragedy That Nearly Ended Her Career

Yet we can now reveal behind hits such as You're Still the One, Man! I Feel Like a Woman! and That Don't Impress Me Much lies a story of violence, bereavement and illness.

Growing up in Timmins, Ontario, Canada, in a home marked by poverty and abuse, she used music to block out the pain, only to be confronted by unimaginable loss in her early 20s.

On November 1 1987, when Twain was 22 and studying in Toronto, her mother Sharon and stepfather Jerry Twain were killed when a logging truck hit their car head‑on near Wawa, Ontario.

She heard the news over the phone.

Twain said in a new interview: "I collapsed hearing that news over the phone. My sister called me, and I could hear my little brother howling in the background. We were all just reeling together. The kids could not be separated after that accident."

A family friend exclusively told us about the impact of the trauma on the performer: "In an instant, Shania went from aspiring singer to guardian. There was no time to process anything – just survive."

Twain moved back to her family home, becoming responsible for her younger siblings and for winding up her parents' affairs.

She said: "I wasn't allowed to grieve because I was thrown into this state of guardianship. I had to do a lot of things I knew nothing about, like take out a second mortgage for the house, to sustain what was going to happen next. I had to understand the accident reports – loads of things nobody would ever want to have to go through – step by step. It was just terrible."

A source close to the family said: "She was doing paperwork that should have been her parents' job, while raising kids who had just lost theirs."

Music, for a time, had to wait.

It returned when Sharon's friend Mary Bailey, who became Twain's first manager, found her a job at the Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ontario.

Twain also told the BBC's Arts Hour show: "So, I'm in this variety show in a golf resort, six hours from our home town. So I had to move the kids to Huntsville, as I had an income that was steady and I could still sing. I couldn't travel around and leave the family, so I was very lucky to have this and at least be in a steady job, and all us kids could stay together."

The resort, which she describes as a lifeline, paid the bills for three years while she kept writing songs.

Songwriting remained at the core of her ambition.

Twain added: "Songwriting is at my core, that's my joy. I kept sharing my demo tapes with Mary. She became like a second mother and would give me feedback."

One of those tapes reached a Nashville music lawyer, who traveled north to hear her perform.

Twain said: "He's blown away to the point that he comes all the way to the resort to hear me sing live. And when I sing the song Wind Beneath My Wings he just couldn't believe it. Now, at this point, I've been at the resort for a while. I can sing in stilettos, I can wear a sequinned gown, I can present more like a world-class performer."

The resort became her training ground.

Twain said: "I learned so much at this resort. I thought I would be there forever – paying bills, which I was grateful to be able to do. I knew, eventually, the kids would go away, and it would be too late for me to have a career. I was only 30 when I had my first top 10 song."

She said: "So the stall was there in my efforts to become a recording artist, but the heavens opened, because I was finally discovered. It was a proper discovery. A proper bigwig from Nashville, Tennessee."

That moment – sitting at a table in Nashville – would give Little Miss Twain its name.

Twain said: "And I go to Nashville, Tennessee, and I sit around that big, round table and they say, 'Little Miss Twain, please sign your name.'"

The signature launched a career that reshaped country pop, but success brought new trials.