Shania Twain
Brian Bowen Smith
"I feel like in a way I'm starting over, with everything," Twain, 44, told Winfrey in an interview at an event in New York on Thursday. "This is a very personal experience that I think is important to share. This is an experience of recovery. I was in a very deep, dark slump, and I needed to find a way to get myself out of it. I had to force myself back out into life, back out into experiencing things."
Twain's marriage of 14 years to Robert "Mutt" Lange collapsed in May 2008 due to Lange's relationship with Twain's longtime friend and assistant, Marie-Anne Thiébaud. In the months that followed, Twain said, there were times when she had no passion or interest in anything.
"There were moments when I really just thought, I don't need anything and I don't need anyone," she said. "I just want to go away and disappear. So, that was a bad slump."
Twain's upcoming show, Why Not? With Shania Twain, follows her life as she emerges from that slump. Its very title is a reference to the first step she took in her recovery.
"One day, someone said to me, 'Do you want to go jump out of an airplane?' " she said. "I felt like I had nothing to lose anymore, so I said, 'Why not?' And every day since then, I ask myself that question."
Twain, who has a son Eja, 8, and is now dating Thiébaud's ex-husband Frédéric, emphasized that she is still in the process of healing. "There's a lot of recovery to accomplish," she said. "I'm not there yet. I'm on my way there. I'm not sure I'll ever be there."
Winfrey interviewed Twain during a so-called "upfront" presentation in New York introducing OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network to advertisers.
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