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Shania Twain on the Affair That Shattered Her Marriage: “Humiliating for Me”
For decades, Shania Twain was the picture of strength, success, and self-assurance — a global superstar who redefined country-pop and became one of the best-selling female artists in history. But behind her radiant smile and powerhouse anthems, the “You’re Still the One” singer endured a heartbreak so deep that it almost silenced her forever.
In a series of candid interviews, Twain has opened up about the devastating affair that destroyed her marriage to producer Robert “Mutt” Lange — and how she found the courage to rebuild her life from the wreckage.
Twain and Lange married in 1993, forming one of music’s most powerful partnerships. Together, they co-wrote and produced multi-platinum hits like Man! I Feel Like a Woman! and That Don’t Impress Me Much. To the world, they were unstoppable — until 2008, when Twain discovered that her husband had been having an affair with her close friend and personal assistant, Marie-Anne Thiébaud.
“It was beyond painful,” Twain told The Mirror. “It was like someone had just torn my life apart. The betrayal was not only from my husband, but from someone I trusted completely. It was humiliating for me.”
The revelation left her numb. She later revealed that Marie-Anne had repeatedly denied the affair when confronted. “I asked her straight out — and she said, ‘No, of course not!’” Twain recalled. “She looked me in the eye and lied. That, more than anything, broke me.”
At the time, Twain was also suffering from Lyme disease, which damaged her vocal cords and made it impossible to sing. “I was drowning,” she said in her 2022 Netflix documentary Not Just a Girl. “My voice was gone. My marriage was gone. My confidence was gone. Everything I thought was solid in my life had crumbled.”
But from that heartbreak came an unexpected light. Twain found solace in Frédéric Thiébaud, Marie-Anne’s then-husband — the other victim of the betrayal. “We confided in each other, shared our grief, and slowly began to heal together,” she explained. Their friendship turned to love, and in 2011, they married in an intimate ceremony in Puerto Rico. “He’s a gift,” Twain said. “A true friend who became my partner. It’s the kind of love that grows out of pain, honesty, and understanding.”
Reflecting on her past, Twain says forgiveness was the only way she could reclaim her peace. “I don’t hold anger anymore,” she told People magazine. “It’s exhausting to live in resentment. I chose to let it go — not for them, but for me.”
Her return to music marked a personal rebirth. In 2017, Twain released Now, her first album in fifteen years — a powerful testament to resilience and reinvention. “That album is me standing on my own two feet,” she said. “I survived the worst, and I came out stronger.”
Today, at 59, Shania Twain has transformed heartbreak into hope. “What happened to me was devastating,” she admits. “But it didn’t define me. Pain can break you — or it can build you. I chose to rise.”
