Shania Twainis back in the saddle after a health battle.
After wrapping her Rock This Country Tour in 2015, the Nashville icon took some time off to focus on family — but she was also silently dealing with vocal cord problems.
“I was on a long sabbatical, and my son [Eja, 18, with ex Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange] was getting older. I love being a full-time mom, but I started thinking, ‘What am I going to do when I have an empty nest?’ I had a problem with my voice; I was avoiding doing something about it,” Twain explains in the new issue of PEOPLE.
“As my son got more independence, I had more time to start focusing on my voice and I put all my energy into that,” Twain, 54, adds.
For more on Shania Twain, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.
Jeff Kravitz/Filmmagic
“When I realized that I could barely sing at all anymore, I was like, ‘I’m humiliating myself. I can’t get out there and do this. I have to stop until I figure it out.’ I thought that it was just fatigue or burnout,” she reflects. “But no — Lyme disease commonly affects the nerves. When I discovered a glimpse of hope, I ran with that.”
After seeking medical help,undergoing open-throat surgeryand strengthening her vocal cords, Twain returned in 2017 with her fifth albumNow— her first in 15 years. In 2018 she hit the road for a triumphant comeback tour, the “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” singer launched her“Let’s Go!” Las Vegas residencyat the Zappos Theater last December.
Shania Twain.Patrick Lewis/Starpix/Shutterstock
And Twain proved she’s still got it last week when she performed at theAmerican Heart Association‘s Go Red for Women Red Dress Collection fashion show in New York City.
Shania Twain in August 2017.Clive Brunskill/Getty
With her own health crisis under control, the singer-songwriter is thrilled to be back in the studio and onstage.
“It would have killed me not to be able to ever sing again,” she says. “I wasn’t going to let my life be over if I wasn’t going to be able to sing again, but I would have been very sad and I would have mourned that forever. But it is a great love of mine and a passion — that’s what got me back on stage again, because I could. Now I have more appreciation for it than ever.”
source: people.com
