Shania Twain knows a thing or two about getting older. The country music icon, who turned 60 last August, opened up about aging during an appearance on Today with Jenna & Sheinelle on Friday, May 1.
To the morning show, the Canadian singer wore a gray power suit, styled with a tie, a loose updo, and gold earrings. Shania, whose groundbreaking album Come On Over was released almost 30-years ago, shared a surprising revelation about getting older.
After host Jenna Bush Hager asked Shania what this stage of life was like and how her new music was different from anything she put out in the past, the singer said: "Well, you realize just how much you haven't changed at all."
© NBC"I guess I've learned more that I never did abandon my child self," Shania added. "[The little girl] who was dreaming about music and writing lyrics never left me."
Shania Twain's difficult childhood
The "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" singer did not have an easy life as a kid. Shania, whose real name is Eilleen Regina Edwards, grew up in the picturesque yet impoverished town of Timmins, Ontario, alongside her four siblings.
© Ron Galella Collection via GettyHer mother, Sharon, and stepfather, Jerry Twain, struggled to make ends meet. Tragically, Jerry's abusive behavior cast a dark shadow over their lives. In 2018, the country singer revealed that Jerry had not only been violent towards Sharon but had also abused her. This dark chapter in her life came to a devastating climax when both her parents died in a car crash when she was just 22.
"For so many years, I've opened up about some of the difficulties and challenges [of my childhood]," Shania explained to Jenna and her co-host Sheinelle Jones. "But I want my fans to relate to the things I talk about when it comes to heartbreak or disappointment."
When Shania was a little girl, she started performing in bars filled with drunk men at her mother's insistence to earn "a few bucks" for the family. "My mother managed to get me into bars to sing for petty cash, and I could only go in after the bar closed, so that was from midnight," she shared in 2018.
© InstagramAnd while at the time, Shania "didn't enjoy it" and "didn't love stinky, smoky bar rooms with drunk men fighting" she is reflecting on those years differently now that she is 60. "I'm looking back now at my childhood with joy," the singer told Jenna and Sheinelle, adding: "I'm seeing just the good things now."
What is Shania Twain up to now?
© Getty ImagesLast May, just a few months before she turned 60, Shania announced to her almost three million Instagram followers that she had started working on her seventh studio album. With photos of her carrying her guitar case, she wrote: "I know that this world isn't systemically built to nurture a woman of my age releasing music BUT I feel more in tune with myself than ever."
And this summer, the singer will take the stage with Harry Styles at his "Together, Together" residency in Wembley Stadium. The two performed together before at Harry's 2023 Coachella performance.
