“Fear Fuels Me”: Shania Twain Opens Up About How She’s Gotten Through Tough Times

Shania Twain hasn’t had an easy road to success. In a new cover story for People, the country singer recalled how early challenges, including growing up poor in rural Canada, turned her into who she is today.

“I grew up really quickly. We didn’t always have money to pay the bills,” Twain told the outlet. “I was one of the adults: getting the kids to school, making meals out of nothing—whatever was left in jars, like ketchup sandwiches—and trying to support my mother through her depression and not being able to feed us or not being able to keep us warm in the winter.”

“She was a wonderful mother,” she continued, “but she couldn’t cope with not always being able to care for us the way she believed we should be cared for.”

Those childhood experiences, Twain said, forced her to “learn how to be brave really early on and not crumble.”

It’s a skill Twain wound up employing many more times throughout her life.

She did so when her mom and step-dad died in a car accident when she was 22, leaving her three siblings in her care. Later, Twain did so again when she underwent a public divorce and faced a nearly career-ending battle with Lyme disease.

“I’ve gotten through difficult times by being capable of finding courage, being brave and pushing through the fear,” she said. “Fear fuels me.”

What to Know About Shania Twain’s Latest Album

Twain explored all that and more on her latest album, Little Miss Twain, which was released earlier this month.

“I’ve already spent all of my life processing the challenges [I’ve had],” Twain said. “I’m at a place where I really enjoy looking back on it with a smile.”

One song of note on the album is the title track. The song features Tanya Tucker, who’s name checked in its lyrics.

“Tanya Tucker was the only child star at the time in country music [when I was growing up]. That was my mother’s reference for who she believed I could be,” Twain explained. “I never did become a child star—I wouldn’t be successful till long after my mother was already gone—but I was thinking about her when I wrote that song.”

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SiriusXM