While Shania Twain was coping with her impending 2008 divorce from longtime producer and collaborator Robert "Mutt" Lange, fellow music icon Prince contacted her with a Fleetwood Mac-inspired offer that, to most, would be one they could not refuse.
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"We're on the phone, and he said, 'Shania, why don't you come to Paisley Park? I want to make the next Rumours album with you,'" she told Apple Music's Zane Lowe ahead of the Feb. 2 release of new album Queen of Me. "And that was the weirdest thing he could've ever said because Mutt's standard on where he thought I could live as a standard was that album, the Rumours album. He said that to me."
Though Twain refers to herself as a "major Prince fan," working through her now ex-husband's infidelities took working on new music of any kind off the table.
"And then on top of it, I hadn't found my voice yet I was still working on it. I was so far from finding it, still," the "Giddy Up" singer said, referring to the battle with Lyme Disease that impacted her vocal range. "I was writing, but I was too insecure to get with Prince in the studio. I was too insecure in every way."
Besides, one of Prince's house rules at his famed Paisley Park studio didn't mesh with Twain's creative process.
"He says to me, 'Well, if you do decide to come to Paisley Park, there's no swearing allowed here,'" she explained. "So that was another strike. I'm like, 'Oh, no, I love you so much, but I don't think I could get through writing and recording an album without swearing somewhere along the way! What are you going to do to me if I swear? I'm going to have to stand in the corner or something!'"
Twain is fresh off an appearance at the 2023 Grammy Awards. She stole the show as more than a presenter, posing for a red carpet pic with Fleetwood Mac drummer and co-founder Mick Fleetwood before cheering on Harry Styles and other pop superstars during the broadcast. Getty Images captured her celebrity encounters thoroughly, inspiring Wide Open Country's wishlist of cross-genre Twain collaborations.
