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THE SECRET WORLD OF SHANIA TWAIN

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With a new Greatest Hits CD and a performance at the CMA Awards, the Nashville outsider turned Swiss Miss lets us into her very private life.

By MARY MURPHY
TV Guide
November 7-13, 2004

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Switzerland is the home of great chocolate secret bank accounts and not surprisingly celebrities who enjoy privacy. To meet Shania Twain you have to find the resort town of Montreux nestled in a valley next to Genevas giant lake. The country is a place isolated from the world at large by geography abd by the Swiss tradition of discretion. No wonder david bowie tina turner and of course Shania Twain all have homes here.

Alone in the Alps with only her husband and producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, 55, and their son Eja, 3, she's certainly come a long way from her grim Canadian childhood. Now after finishing a 10-month world tour in July to promote her last CD UP!, the 39 year old Twain doesn't want another tour or Grammy or a TV series like Reba McIntire or even another cappuccino. She just wants to take a break. "I feel like I have given everything I can", she tells TV Guide.

Tired is what you get when you work hard. Twain is the most successful female crossover artist of her time. She's been performing since she was 8, won countless awards and sold more than 65 million records worldwide. Her fifth album, Shania Twain Greatest Hits (with 3 new cuts written by Twain and Lange), is due out Nov. 9. That same day Shania will be a special guest when Brooks and Dunn host the CMA's despite her contentious relationship with the CMA. "She has really been left out of the loop" says country singer Toby Keith. "I don't feel like they really have accepted her - or me."

While that maybe so on stage, Twain is a huge star a country-pop singing dynamo. But during this interview she is quiet reflective friendly and full of surprises. One of them may be that her family's move to Switzerland is just a first step in their exit from the world stage. Last September she and Lange closed a reported 14 million deal on a huge farm on New Zealand's South Island where the couple may spend part of each year - half a planet away from Nashville.

Do you know that people think you live here because youure hiding something?
[laughs] Well I have a lot of secrets. One of them is that I am an alien.

What else is surprising about you?
I hate showering. I always bathe. My favorite junk food is Goodies [candy]. And my favorite thing is to put Eja in a stroller, walk to our pizza joint, pig out on pizza and walk back to work it off.

Seriously why do you live here?
I like living like a normal person. I can't live in Canada or London. You have to avoid doing normal things and that drives me nuts.

So it’s you, the baby and Mutt. Who do you turn to if you have a fight?
I never talk to anybody about our fights. I am not going to get outside opinions. It just confuses me. Just like when we do our music. Having someone else control our music would be creative hell.

So you do have fights?
Sure there are days I would like to throw him in Lake Geneva. But that's a pretty big lake. I figure if I did I would never find him again and by the next day I would be sorry and it would be too late.

You have 3 new songs on the album. "Don't" is about a troubled relationship. People may think it's about yours.
It's not like some deep dark secret is going to come out in our music.

What does Mutt call you? Shania or Eilleen the name you grew up with?
Woody. Because when I first met him I had early 90's hair and when I tied it back in a ponytail I looked like woody woodpecker.

How do you parent Eja?
I’m 'more the disciplinarian. Mutt doesnt see anything wrong with having chocolate if you are in the mood for chocolate. But when the kid is 3 and it is a half hour until dinner, the kid can't have chocolate.

Do you want to have any more children?
I don't think so. I don't want any more work. And babies are work.

Did you know they're making a TV movie about you in Canada?
I'm not involved. They are not going to get it right because they don't know me. I am not trying to hide anything but there are things I can't discuss. A lot of what was in my childhood. That whole period was quite dark and not everything is known.

You often talk about your stepfather Jerry Twain but you never mention your birth father Clarence Edwards who split from your mom Sharon when you were 2.
I have 2 memories of him. One when I was only 2 and he came for a visit and he was angry at me for something. And then when I was 4 he came to visit my mother. I was sleeping but I could hear his boots and I was petrified. I saw him again when I was 17. He didn't seem like somebody I would have a lot to say to. It was not emotional at all for me.

Your mother had drive for you. But was she a depressed person?
I don't think she was [clinically] depressed. She was depressed by circumstances. There would be no money for groceries for 2 weeks so my mother would stay in bed for 2 weeks.

Do you get depressed like your mom?
No. Because I am a fighter. I will find a way to carry on.

You have been performing since you were 8. At 11 your mom was pulling you out of bed to sing in bars.
I hated it because I knew I was probably not going to go to school the next day. And when I did I would have to lie and say I was sick. It was just dysfunctional. I never ever wanted to be the center of attention. It is just during my last 2 tours that I have found the confidence to enjoy it.

It's amazing. You are the best selling female Country artist of all time and you hate the limelight.
I really am tortured in that I just want to be a creative person. If I could put my music on a canvas and not be in the room and let the canvas be the star that would be my greatest pleasure.

Why release a Greatest Hits album now?
First of all I believe in them. A lot of my [cd] collection is Greatest Hits. Second I don't get a chance to look back very often because I am so busy living in the freaking future.

Do you think you will back out of performing and just write?
Very possibly. In my sixties I don't think I am going to be planning a world tour. I just think I would like to write more and watch other people perform.

I've been told you can get very angry on tour.
I'm not an explosive person. I can get pissed off. I need space every now and then.

You have had a very contentious relationship with Nashville. How do you feel about appearing on the CMA Awards this year?
I think I am finally getting more respect. I feel like when I walk in there they can look me in the eye and treat me like an adult. I feel I have proven myself.

And how tough has that been?
You've got a record company investing in you a promotional team make up artists. My husband was part of all the projects. I have been the lead dog for so long. I'm tired of being the lead dog.

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