Shania Twain Now Brushes Off Once Being Called ‘America’s Best Paid Lap Dancer’
Before she was a global superstar, Shania Twain was an up-and-coming country singer in Nashville with nothing more than a voice and a dream. But as her star began to rise in the 1990s, the Canadian singer began to face sexist criticism about her work, garnering derogatory nicknames like “America’s Best Paid Lap Dancer in Nashville.”
Shania Twain got her start in Nashville
After working as a singer at a resort in Canada for a few years, Shania Twain decided that she was ready to launch her country music career in Nashville in the early 1990s. She inked her first record deal in 1992, and released her self-titled debut album the following year.
“My debut record was an experience that was pretty much me as the newbie in town in Nashville treading lightly, trying to find my way as an original artist with all my own ideas, without being kicked out of town,” the singer remembered in her 2022 Netflix documentary Not Just a Girl.
Record executives felt that the music she was writing wasn’t country enough, leading to the singer having very little creative control over what the finished product sounded like. And while she didn’t have much say over how things sounded, she was able to take the reins when filming music videos for her songs.
The music video for her 1993 debut single “What Made You Say That” was where Twain felt she could express herself as freely as she wanted. “The music video for ‘What Made You Say That,’ that was the moment that I grabbed onto creatively, and it was liberating. And I liberated myself in so many ways, and right from that very first video,” she said in the documentary. “It was like, ‘Freedom!’”
“I was a disruption to the image of country music,” she declared. “Absolutely.”
She was once called ‘America’s Best Paid Lap Dancer in Nashville’
When she first emerged on the country music scene, Twain was not as warmly received as she is today.
“I was criticized as an artist,” Twain said in an episode of her Apple Music show Home Now Radio. “I’m surprised I ever had any hits actually when I read them now.”
She went on to explain some of the names that she was called as a result of her boldness. “Part of the quote from one of my reviews was, ‘She’s America’s best paid lap dancer in Nashville. She’s hot, but can she sing? Is Shania just a flash in the pan? The most famous midriff in Nashville.’”
Ultimately, she got the last laugh. “I ended up having hits anyway. Very satisfying,” she said, pointing out that the criticism she received was after the release of her 1995 song “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under,” the lead single from her 1995 sophomore album The Woman In Me. “I wrote the song. And I was a little bit hurt, I guess, at the harsh critics, not focusing on the music,” she admitted.
In a 2020 interview with The Independent, the “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” delved more into the criticism she faced from seemingly every corner. “I would be hated by the men because I was too opinionated and too forceful and demanding, and I would be hated by the women because I was being sensually expressive,” she said. “And I thought, well, I don’t believe that’ll be the case.”
She went on to become a worldwide superstar
In the end, the criticism Twain faced became nothing more but a laughable memory. Her 1997 album Come On Over transformed her from a popular country singer to one of the biggest artists in the world, performing sold-out shows for years after the album’s release. The project was certified double-diamond with over 20 million copies sold in the US, and spawned several hit singles including “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”, “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” and “You’re Still the One.”
She repeated her success with her 2002 album Up!, which also was certified diamond. It would be another 15 years (and a Las Vegas residency show) before Twain would release new music with her 2017 comeback album Now, which also earned diamond certification.
Twain reclaimed her body once again in 2022 with the artwork for her song “Waking Up Dreaming,” a single from her highly-anticipated sixth studio album.
