shania twain© Photo: Getty Images

Shania Twain mourns her parents not seeing her career after their tragic car crash: 'It's very painful'

The Not Just a Girl star's parents died in 1987

Beatriz Colon - New York
New York WriterNew York
January 25, 2023

As Shania Twain's comeback approaches – she releases her first album since 2017, Queen of Me, on February 3rd – the star is looking back on the makings of her career.

The singer has been working since the late 1980s, after a tumultuous childhood growing up in Ontario, Canada in the 1960s and 1970s.

Speaking with The Guardian ahead of her new album's release, she reflected on her past, and, opening up about her parents, she detailed the difficulty she has had knowing they never got to see her fame.

WATCH: Shania Twain plays arcade games in expletive-ridden video

MORE: NCIS confirms return of well-loved character - and fans are excited

Shania was raised by her mother and stepfather – she didn't have contact with her biological father after she was two years old – though the two were killed in a tragic car accident when she was twenty-two, in 1987.

She had complicated relationships with both. She maintains that while her mother was a huge supporter of hers, it often came from a place of seeing her own daughter as a source of income.

MORE: Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie unite with Today crew to bid bittersweet NBC farewell

"I was her hope, the one who would make it. I think she recognized the dysfunction in our life, and thought that side would be solved somehow along the way," the Man! I Feel Like a Woman hitmaker explained.

© Photo: Getty Images

The star's first album was released in 1993, six years after her parents' death

Meanwhile, she recently opened up about the sexual abuse she faced at the hands of her stepfather starting when she was ten years old. Her latest feature in The Guardian reveals she never had the opportunity to confront him prior to his death.

MORE: Salma Hayek's sultry bathtub photo might be her most stunning yet

MORE: Gwen Stefani shares happy news she had to ‘hold in for so long’ amid pregnancy rumors

There's a lot that her parents were never able to see, and despite their fraught relationship, she admitted: "When I started to win awards was when it really bothered me the most that my parents were not there to see the glory," adding: "Because I felt that they had sacrificed so much. And they deserved to share in those moments."

Shania will also be going on tour to promote her new album

She said: "It was a treacherous relationship, anyway, for all of us. The sacrifice on their part was just suffering through all of those arguments. And, in the end, I make it and they're not there to say: 'Well, at least it was for something.'

"It's very painful. It's very, very sad that they never got to see one moment of it."

Read more HELLO! US stories here

Like this story? Sign up to our newsletter to get other stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. 

Sign up to HELLO! Daily for all the latest and best celebrity coverage

Email Address

By entering your details, you are agreeing to HELLO! Magazine User Data Protection Policy. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information, please click here.

More Celebrity News

See more