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In 2017, Shania emerged from one of the darkest hours of her life, losing her first husband and longtime creative collaborator, famed music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, and her voice to nerve damage she suffered as a result of Lyme Disease. Though she was down, her story was far from over. Shania re-emerged to find love with second husband, Frédéric Thiébaud, and the prodigious singer retrained and strengthened her voice for a musical comeback. Her 2017 album, Now, is a mostly up-tempo celebration of healing, independence [Shania made this album sans the musical direction of ex- husband, Robert], love, and pure joy. It's a personal and professional triumph. Shania remains steadfast and plain-spoken in emphasizing her humble roots, though she is now unapologetic in celebrating her storied career, and excited about all she has yet to accomplish. She extended her second Las Vegas Residency, "Shania Twain 'Let's Go!'" through the end of 2020, and she takes on her second major film role in next month's, I Still Believe, playing Terry Camp, the mother of Christian singer- songwriter Jeremy Camp, in a moving story inspired by Jeremy's personal life and career. Looking back over your five decades of life, what events and experiences have been most formative for you? Shania Twain: My youth, growing up in a small northern mining town in Canada was very formative. That upbringing has stayed with me in many ways, I would say permanently. My parents dying was a personal earthquake in my life, and life shattering. My first marriage was formative. Everything changed in my life as a result of my first marriage, both personally and creatively. That partnership [with ex-husband, music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange] created a change in my life forever. And having a child was an incredibly life-changing experience, and a very beautiful one. My son has brought a lot of consistency and stability to me, emotionally. Then, of course, there was the loss and weakening of my voice. How do you turn challenges into blessings? ST: If I start with losing my voice and my divorce, the silver lining during all of that was falling into love with somebody (current husband, Frédéric). He has been an incredible support through those difficult times. My second marriage has been an incredible re-strengthening of my confidence, of my will to even want to sing again. It is just amazing, the power of love, and I am very grateful to have found that again. I had been going along and enduring so much of what I had lost for a very long time. Finding the courage to regain my voice and getting back on stage again, taking all those risks. How about even taking the risk to fall in love again [laughs]?! In my early 20s, I was living in Los Angeles, trying to find work as a writer and broke [laughs], and I would drive around listening to your music for inspiration. I would listen to "From This Moment On", "The Woman in Me", "God Bless the Child." Your music would keep me company, comfort me, and make me feel hopeful. I can only imagine how many other millions of people your music has done that for. You'll never know who they are, and you'll never know their stories. Do you ever stop to think about the enormity of that? ST: I relate to it very, very well, because that's exactly what music does for me. I understand completely what you're talking about and what role music plays in the lives of people, and sometimes for the artist as well. If you can relate to the artist as well as to their music, it's such an essential and it is such a huge part of my daily life. I'm very affected by it. My moods are affected by what song I'm listening to. I'm very easily influenced by music. I've never, in all my years, even when I was very young and getting into this business, I've never fallen into substance abuse. I was never into drugs or taking any thing to enhance my creativity, and I was never a partier. I was always extremely serious, and the music, itself, was where I would get lost. I would literally get high on music or go into the state of mind of wherever a piece of music took me. If I can make people feel that way, if I can have that effect on people through my music, I've achieved every thing I could ever ask for. The one thing that so many people I've interviewed have in common, people who have reached the top of their field or craft, is that they are masters at manipulating energy and matter, and manifesting things into physical existence, into the material world. Would you put yourself in that category? ST: Definitely! I think I've had a one-track mind, even now I still have this. Certainly, when I was developing [my career] and I was on my path, I was unreasonable. There was no distraction, there was nothing else. My focus was absolute, and all my energy went into whatever goals I was setting for myself. I think that is the only way you can even use the word "master." Certainly, if you can master your own development in your craft and get that good at something, that it's completely… you're inseparable from it. You're inseparable from that ability and that skill. I've spent so much of my life in that mode, if you will. I still see so much of that in myself now, when I'm pushing myself as a songwriter or with whatever it is I'm doing. I'm always 100% in it.