Shania Twain is reflecting on her past pain in a new Netflix documentary. Photo / Getty Images
Shania Twain is diving deep into her past.
The Man! I Feel Like A Woman singer has had an iconic career, but a new Netflix documentary reveals it hasn't been plain sailing for the star.
Now 56, Twain is reflecting on the darkest periods of her life, including her devastating divorce from Robert "Mutt" Lange and a shock Lyme disease diagnosis that left her having regular blackouts.
The documentary titled Not Just a Girl chronicles Twain's journey from small-town Canadian performer to global superstar and goes into depth about the star's relationship with music producer Lange whom she married in 1993.
The couple's story began when Twain heard Lange wanted to work with her, "I don't know who this person is. I don't know his success yet. I just know that his name is Mutt Lange," she said.
"I didn't want to be too forward [after meeting], but in my mind, I'm saying, 'Oh wow, if this guy made my music sound like that, that would be the dream.' Like, whoa."
Twain's dream became a reality and over time the pair developed a close partnership together. Teaming up professionally, they released Twain's hit 1995 album, The Woman in Me.
The couple teamed up again two years later to release the best-selling album of all time by a female solo artist, Come On Over, which included hits like You're Still the One and That Don't Impress Me Much.
But while the Any Man of Mine hitmaker was riding the high of her newfound success, she suffered a massive blow to her health when she was bitten by a tick while horse riding.
In the documentary, Twain explained, "The tick was infected with Lyme disease, and I did get Lyme disease,"
"My symptoms were quite scary because before I was diagnosed, I was on stage very dizzy. I was losing my balance, I was afraid I was gonna fall off the stage… I was having these very, very, very millisecond blackouts, but regularly, every minute or every 30 seconds."
The diagnosis also resulted in her voice changing.
Twain said it was "never the same again" leading her to a dark place where she believed she "would never, ever sing again."
The singer explained she thankfully found a way to sing again but as she was adapting to the life-altering diagnosis, she learned that her husband was having an affair with her best friend Marie-Anne Thiébaud.
"In that search to determine what was causing this lack of control with my voice and this change in my voice, I was facing a divorce. My husband leaves me for another woman," Twain said. "Now I'm at a whole other low. And I just don't see any point in going on with a music career."
Twain – who tragically lost both her parents when she was 22 after they were involved in a car accident - went on to compare her divorce to the loss of her parents.
"It was like the death was the end, a permanent end to so many facets of my life. And I never got over my parents' death. So I'm thinking, 'S***, I'm never going to get over this.' Like…how do you get over that? So all I can do is determine how I'm going to carry on from there."
Adding, "How am I going to crawl out of this hole that I've fallen in? Just like that, you know?"
The Forever and for Always singer divorced Lange in 2008 and years later in 2011 she found love again, this time with Marie-Anne's husband Frédéric Thiébaud who she is still married to.
Twain revealed that while she had moved on from Lange emotionally she had to also move on from him professionally and record music without him.
"It took a long time to be ready to write and record again." She said adding she would "exercise" saying to herself, "Okay, look, you can't just not ever make music again because you don't have Mutt. You gotta just dive in."
The star didn't release another album until 2017 but it was worth the wait as she described it as her "favourite recorded work".
She said the release of her 2017 album, Now, was where she discovered herself as a creative individual again "like I'd been all of my youth."
Not Just a Girl is now available on Netflix