Random Unbelievably Tragic Life Of Shania Twain (10 items)

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  (#6) She Grew Up In Poverty, Occasionally Taking "Poor Man's Sandwiches" To School

  A "poor man's sandwich" is essentially two pieces of bread with nothing but mustard or mayonnaise in between. Her family struggled financially, so sometimes that was the only food she took to school. She was too proud to ask other children for food, even though hunger made it hard for her to concentrate in class. Twain also did not want to bring up her lack of food, fearing that it would lead her teachers to call child services, since it seemed like her parents could not provide for her. 
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  (#4) She Had To Sing In Bars At 8 Years Old To Help Her Family Pay The Bills

  In order to help her struggling parents pay the bills, Shania began performing in bars when she was eight. She came onstage after last call - the bars were technically closed, but she was allowed to play for the stragglers before they went home (not exactly a legal thing for a kid to do). 

  She usually made around $20 or $50 depending on the night, even though she generally hated the bars. They were smokey and full of "slobbering" drunken men, and performing from midnight to 2am could not have been easy for an eight-year-old.
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  (#1) Shania's Stepfather Was Physically And Verbally Abusive

  Twain has described her stepfather, Jerry Twain, both positively and negatively in interviews throughout the years. He adopted her and her two sisters when he married their mother. Shania was only four and always called him "Dad." She was very fond of him, and has said that she was always very confused by his "Jekyll and Hyde" personality. 

  "I loved him and I respected so much what he did for us, being the hard worker, he set a great example. So I'm still left confused."

  Although she credits him for her hard-working nature and says he taught her to be a good person, he was verbally abusive to her throughout her childhood and physically abusive to her mother. She also has said that Jerry was sexually abusive towards her, and would mutter lewd comments to her and fondle her while she was in bed. This is one of the reasons Shania convinced her mother to leave Jerry and live in a Toronto shelter.
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  (#2) At One Point, The Domestic Abuse Got So Bad She Thought Her Stepfather Had Killed Her Mother

  At some point when Shania was growing up, she was certain she had witnessed her mother's death. Her stepfather had shoved Sharon Twain's head into a toilet; she was unconscious and "looked dead." Shania later described her emotions during that event, and how in the moment she believed that she had just witnessed her mother's death. 

  "I really thought she was drowned, or dead, or that he had just smashed her head in and she was never going to wake up... She looked dead. She was unconscious, she was limp, hanging from his, you know, her, he had her hair in his hands."

  What made things worse for young Shania was how undignified dying by being thrown into a toilet seemed.

  "Also, through the humiliation of how I thought she had been killed, by drowning in a toilet seat... It was very, very obviously very hard to take."
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  (#9) She Battled Lyme Disease

  Although she initially blamed the loss of her voice and derailment of her music career on dysphonia brought on by her divorce, in a July 2017 interview she passed the blame to Lyme disease. Twain claims that it was her private battle with the tick-borne illness that ravaged her voice, leaving her able to speak but not yell or sing for several years.
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  (#5) Her Parents Died In A Car Crash, Leaving 21-Year-Old Shania To Care For Her Three Younger Siblings

  When Shania was 21 years old, her music career was beginning to take off. Unfortunately, a family tragedy changed everything. Shania's mother and stepfather were killed in a car crash, and she left her budding career behind to take care of her three teenaged siblings. 

  She was able to keep singing, however - because she had to. To support her family, she got a regular gig singing show tunes in a "Las Vegas-style show" in a nearby town.

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