Singer Shania Twain became a huge star in the 1990s, but then her voice suddenly went quiet. Now she’s back and performing in New Zealand for the very first time. Emma Clifton looks at the extraordinary circumstances that preceded her return.
This December, the country crossover star will perform her first ever concerts in New Zealand as part of her remarkable comeback tour, after she suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from the public stage in 2004.
She may not have performed here before, but Shania has a long history with New Zealand. Back in 2004 she and her then husband Robert “Mutt” Lange paid an eye-watering $21.5 million to buy Motatapu station, a 24,731ha piece of stunning land in the South Island. It became both a dream holiday destination and also a future focus for Shania, somewhere she, Mutt and their son Eja would live once she had embraced a quieter life. “I started designing a homestead for us shortly after we bought it and began putting my heart, soul and dreams into the plans,” she wrote in her memoir From This Moment On. “Every year Mutt, Eja and I would go there for several months, living in a small caravan parked in one of the sheep paddocks... we enjoyed camping out while our home was being built.”
But the Kiwi dream took a devastating turn when Shania and Mutt split in 2008, with Mutt becoming the sole owner of the property, which has now become Mahu Whenua Luxury Lodge (where overnight rates start at $1850 a night).
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