Shania Twain on the Pain of Losing Her Ex-Husband to Her Best Friend
A new Netflix documentary called Not Just A Girl premiered on Netflix on July 26. The documentary explores the life of music icon Shania Twain, from her career to her divorce from her ex-husband Robert “Mutt” Lange. In the documentary, Twain described her divorce from Lange as “like a death.”
Who is Shania Twain’s ex-husband?
Twain and Lange married in 1993, and their son Eja was born in 2001. Lange is a music producer best known for his work with Twain, AC/DC, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, and more.
According to People Magazine, in Not Just A Girl, Twain described what it was like to meet Lange.
“I don’t know who this person is. I don’t know his success yet. I just know that his name is Mutt Lange,” said Twain. “I didn’t want to be too forward [after meeting], but in my mind, I’m saying, ‘Oh wow, if this guy made my music sound like that, that would be the dream.’ Like, whoa.”
Why Shania Twain and her ex-husband divorced
Twain and Lange announced their separation in 2008. It was revealed that while still married, Lange had an affair with Marie-Anne Thiébaud, Twain’s best friend.
“My husband leaves me for another woman,” Twain said in her new documentary according to People Magazine. “Now I’m at a whole other low. And I just don’t see any point in going on with a music career.”
In Not Just A Girl, Twain reportedly compared her divorce to grieving her parents’ death, saying:
“When I lost Mutt, I guess I thought…I was thinking that the grief of that was… It was similarly intense to losing my parents. And you know, it was like a death… It was like the death was the end, a permanent end to so many facets of my life. And I never got over my parents’ death. So I’m thinking, ‘S***, I’m never going to get over this.’ Like…how do you get over that? So all I can do is determine how I’m going to carry on from there. How am I going to crawl out of this hole that I’ve fallen in? Just like that, you know?”
Shania Twain went on to marry Frédéric Thiébaud
After divorcing Lange, Twain ended up marrying Frédéric Thiébaud, Marie-Anne Thiébaud’s ex-husband. The two married in 2011.
Twain also made the effort to confidently make music without Lange, as they had been frequent collaborators before divorcing.
“So now I said, ‘Okay listen, I’m going to not only get back into the studio without him, I’m going to write all the music alone, and just discover myself again as individual creative, like I’d been all of my youth,'” Twain said in Not Just A Girl according to People Magazine.
Not Just A Girl is available to watch on Netflix.
