It takes a sledgehammer to knock me DOW N ...but I always get up again!

New Starstruck judge Shania Twain reveals how she bounced back after her husband ran off with her best friend... and a rare disease left her unable to sing

over his back when he was attacking her mother. She punched him back. That was an average night in the Twain household.

Looking at Shania today, it’s hard to imagine poor Eilleen as she was then. Beautiful, groomed and softly spoken, this dedicated vegetarian is tiny, slim and looks far younger than her 57 years. In 2009, scientists at the University of Toronto released their research on facial features using geometrical measurements, and claimed that the most ‘perfect’ face in the world was Shania Twain’s.

But she’s far tougher than she looks. As a woman, she’s done much to break down barriers in the music industry, particularly in country music, which initially dismissed her as a lightweight bimbo who dared to cross over into rock and pop. Yet she defied her critics to become one of the biggest selling country-rock artists of all time.

As troubled as her childhood was, Shania says it gave her the tools she needed to fight the innate sexism of the country music world and break through as a mainstream crossover artist. Although she’s a big supporter of the #Metoo movement, she insists she’s never been sexually abused in the industry. ‘I think things are better in the music business generally but in country music there’s still a block,’ she says. ‘There are a lot of talented women but it’s 90 per cent controlled by men – there needs to be an intervention. I would never allow anyone to bully me. By the time I got to Nashville I knew exactly what I was about and what other people were about. As bad as my background was, it was a big advantage.’

Shania was just eight when her mother started taking her to bars, sneaking out when Jerry was sleeping so she could perform for $20 a night. ‘If you’re an eight-year-old who’s raised in a rough and unsafe atmosphere you’re going to become very savvy. You’re raised to be tough and look out for things and keep your eyes open,’ she says. ‘My mum is the one who took me to bars. People were drinking, they would be wasted by midnight. It wasn’t a place for a child but I learnt so much about people, about psychology, about keeping myself safe. When I was older I was fearless because I felt I could look after myself. You learn how to watch for changes when people drink.

When we were kids we’d all go over to a relative’s house party and I’d be singing and everyone would be drunk out of their minds. All the kids would get together in a bedroom, climb into bed and lock the door, push furniture against the door to keep people out. It’s just what we learnt, what we did, and that made me prepared for Nashville. I wasn’t naive. I was tough.’

From the bars of Timmins she progressed to local TV and cover bands, singing all over Ontario. In 1987 her mother and stepfather were killed in a car accident, so she moved her younger siblings to Huntsville, Ontario, and got a job as a performer in a ‘Vegas-style’ show at a hotel. It wasn’t until 1993, when her siblings had left school, that Shania set out to make her name in Nashville.

Her first album was modestly received, but her second, 1995’s country-rock crossover The Woman In Me, has sold 20 million copies and earned Shania her first Grammy. In 1997 her breakthrough album Come On Over spawned the hits, such as That Don’t Impress Me Much and Man! I Feel Like A Woman!, that turned her into an international star.

She’d married her producer Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange in 1993, and with hit albums and sellout tours, millions in the bank and a son, Eja, born in 2001, life couldn’t have been better. Then, in 2003, Shania contracted Lyme disease while horseriding. She struggled to keep her balance on stage and after tests was told that the bacterial infection, which comes from being bitten by an infected tick, had penetrated her vocal cords. She didn’t perform for a decade. ‘I thought I’d never sing again. For a long time it was all over, which was completely devastating.’

There was more trauma when, in 2008, she discovered that Mutt was having an affair with her best friend Marie-anne Thiébaud, who’d been her confidante when she’d suspected he was cheating. ‘I lost my husband and my best friend,’ she says. ‘There followed seven years of deep, deep sorrow. But you learn what you’re made of when you come out of that storm, it makes you stronger.’

The final twist to the Shania story is that in 2010 – the year her divorce was finalised – she became engaged to Swiss Nestlé executive Frédéric Thiébaud, Marie-anne’s ex-husband and the only man who understood her feelings of betrayal. They were married on New Year’s Day 2011 in Puerto Rico. In 2012, her voice recovered, Shania did her first Las Vegas residency. A second finished last year, shortly before Adele began hers. Shania went to see Adele’s show wearing one of her trademark cowboy hats, and Adele’s post-show Instagram message read, ‘Thank God you had a hat on @shaniatwain. I would have self-combusted had I seen it was you!! I adore you, I can’t believe you came to my show.’

In Shania’s recent Netflix documentary, Not Just A Girl, a producer who worked with her commented, ‘You’d have to take a sledgehammer to knock her down – and she’d get up.’ Shania laughs and says this is absolutely true. In despair after her marriage broke up, she kept working on her voice (she had a vocal operation in 2018), trying to pull herself out of the black hole she found herself in.

‘Betrayal messes with the mind,’ she says. ‘I’ve never faced anger like that but I let it all out. I’m in a good place emotionally as a woman. I feel comfortable and I have my voice again. Fred is a great support, we’re a team and I’m happy.’

Her new album Queen Of Me has just been released and she’s embarking on a marathon tour later in the year. And of course she’s becoming part of Britain’s Saturday night entertainment. ‘Bring it on,’ she says with a smile. ‘Everything that’s happened to me was once a completely impossible dream. Magic happens with music. Let’s see what’s going to happen on this show.’

I thought I’d never sing again. For a long time it was all over, which was completely devastating