Claire Reid
Shania Twain has said she used to ‘flatten’ her boobs when growing up to avoid sexual attention from her step-father.
The 57-year-old country singer has previously spoken about the physical and sexual abuse she received from her step-father, claiming it started when she was just 10-years-old.
In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Twain said she would try to hide herself and make it look as if there was ‘nothing girl’ about her.
She said: “I hid myself and I would flatten my boobs. I would wear bras that were too small for me, and I’d wear two, play it down until there was nothing girl about me. Make it easier to go unnoticed.
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“Because, oh my gosh, it was terrible – you didn’t want to be a girl in my house.
“But then you go into society and you’re a girl and you’re getting the normal other unpleasant stuff too, and that reinforces it. So then you think, ‘Oh, I guess it’s just s****y to be a girl.
“Oh, it’s so s****y to have boobs.’ I was ashamed of being a girl.”
Twain’s step-father and mother both died in a car crash in 1987, when the singer was 22-years-old.
Twain has been open about the abuse she suffered in her younger years saying she managed to learn to ‘block it out’.
During an interview with the Guardian in 2018, she said: “I feel the sexual abuse goes hand in hand with the physical and psychological abuse when it’s somebody you know. I learned to block it out.
“Abusers need to manipulate you, whether it’s before or after, and what I said to myself is, ‘OK, there’s something wrong with this person and that person is not well’.”
Earlier this year, Twain admitted that she didn’t find it easy to become a ‘curvy female’, following years of hiding her body away to avoid attracted attention from her step-father.
She told the Independent: “I didn’t transition easily into being a curvy female, y’know? I wore tracksuits and dressed in boys’ clothes. I never wore a bathing suit at the beach. And I became very withdrawn and uncomfortable in my own skin. As a teen I strapped my breasts down, I wore two bras. Anything to stop the boobs bouncing.”
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact The Survivor’s Trust for free on 08088 010 818, or through their website thesurvivorstrust.org