Shania Twain is one of the biggest names in country music. But it turns out that the icon has been battling severe stage fright for years.
"I'm not the greatest reader," Twain told Taste of Country. "I'm a very spontaneous speaker and thinker, so if I get rambling, they might have to take the hook out and get me off the stage."
Twain confessed that she's been dealing with stage fright since she was 8-years-old. It's something she's faced her entire career.
"I've always had terrible stage fright," she told CTV in Canada in 2019, "So, I think the only way to deal with it would be for me to just forget about what I was doing and jump right into 'We're all in this together' to not feel isolated."
She added, "I'm still the 8-year-old who is afraid to go on stage and as soon as I'm embraced by the audience, then I don't feel like I'm standing alone."
Shania Twain Talks Stage Fright
Twain confessed that she had to force herself on stage. She said it is "not a step, it's a leap. It's a jump. You know, Pavaratti said every night before going on stage, just before going on stage, 'OK, everybody, it's time to die,' because it feels like you're crossing a threshold, this petrifying threshold and it literally is a leap. It's the unknown every night. That's the thing about live. It's so unknown. I don't even want to say it, but things happen that are unexpected."
She added, "Sometimes you forget the words. I mean, how embarrassing is that? So, if you think about everything that could go wrong, which is normally what somebody with stage fright does, you go through this panic for a bit, and then once you've crossed that threshold, you've taken the leap, now I feel once I'm there that I'm embraced by the audience, and it's over."
Over the years, Twain has made a couple of gaffs on stage. But she's always found her way.
"Stage fright can be very crippling," she said on Live with Kelly and Ryan in 2019. "I've had times where I really just felt like I couldn't go out, you know, just froze, or I'd get sweaty palms and shaking."
