“That song was me saying I have waited too long to feel good about being a woman,” the country singer said
Shaina Twain revealed the tragic truth behind one of her popular songs.
In a new interview with The Times published Sunday, June 23, the country singer, 58, opened up about her abusive childhood and how it influenced her 1997 hit song “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”
Twain said that her mother’s second husband Jerry would sexually assault her in addition to being physically abusive to her mother.
“That song was me saying I have waited too long to feel good about being a woman. For many years I shied away from it or wished I wasn’t a woman. I was a shy, insecure female — not person,” Twain said about the popular song featured on her Come On Over album.
The five-time Grammy winner continued to tell the outlet, “My brain said, ‘I don’t really care what I am,’ but my body got in the way — the female got in the way. I’ve got curves so I had to set boundaries and guards very young. I did everything not to bring attention to them.”
She felt as though she “missed out on the joy of being a female” and said she never “once went to the beach in a bathing suit” as a teen.
“I knew that boys were going to take advantage of me in one way or another,” she added.
However, her feelings eventually changed. “But then I became tired of acting like I’m not a female with curves, so I wrote ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ I guess I was a late bloomer in getting comfortable in my own skin, but after a while you just have to stop picking away at the things you can’t change,” the singer said.
