Arts and Entertainment
Shania Twain had to perform before drunk men to make her mother happy
LOS ANGELES — Canadian singer-songwriter Shania Twain has revealed that she would get out of bed to sing for drunk men in bars as a kid.
The singer said that she did so to make her mother happy. It left her with stage fright for decades, reports Mirror.co.uk.
She said: “I don’t regret what she did.” Only when her career was left hanging by a thread by tick-borne Lyme disease did she overcome her fears.
As per Mirror.co.uk, Shania, who will perform at Glastonbury this summer for the first time, first sang to make “a few bucks” for her family. Aged eight, she would wake up at midnight to head out and do a set.
She told Dermot O’Leary’s Reel Stories: “I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t love stinky, smoky bar rooms with drunk men fighting. It did make me really hate being in the spotlight. I had stage fright for a very long time.”
Speaking of her mum, Sharon, who was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her stepdad, the singer, said: “My music made her happy. (Her) plan was I’d be the next Tanya Tucker. I didn’t want to do it. I’m petrified. But my mother was like, ‘This is the only way you’re going to get anywhere’.”