Shania Twain

Canadian singer-songwriter Shania Twain found success by combining country and pop music. She became an international star following the release of her 1997 album ‘Come On Over.’

Synopsis

Shania Twain was born in Canada on August 28, 1965. A music lover early on, she started writing songs at age 10. Her second album, The Woman in Me (1995), was a big success, then Come on Over (1997) went on to sell 40 million records, making it the bestselling album by a female artist, as well as the top country music record. After separating from her husband in 2008, the five-time Grammy winner stepped out of the spotlight, but she returned to perform a series of shows in Las Vegas from 2012 to 2014.

Early Life

On August 28, 1965, Eilleen Regina Edwards—who would later change her name to Shania Twain—was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Her parents divorced when she was young, but her mother, Sharon, soon remarried, to a man named Jerry Twain, a member of the Ojibwa tribe. Jerry adopted Sharon’s three daughters, and the four-year-old Eilleen became Eilleen Twain.

Twain grew up in the small town of Timmins, located in Ontario. There, her family often struggled to make ends meet, and Twain sometimes had nothing more than a “poor man’s sandwich” (bread spread with mayonnaise or mustard) for lunch at school. Jerry also had a violent streak, and Twain and her siblings witnessed him attack Sharon on more than one occasion.