When Shania Twain lost her voice, she thought her career was over. For the woman who once filled arenas with Man! I Feel Like a Woman! and You’re Still the One, silence felt unbearable.
The Illness That Changed Everything
In the late 2000s, after years of touring, Shania began to struggle with her voice. Doctors later diagnosed her with Lyme disease, a tick-borne infection that caused nerve damage to her vocal cords. “It felt like my voice was gone forever,” she once confessed.
The illness forced her into isolation. For almost a decade, Shania withdrew from public life, moving to Switzerland to undergo therapy. The woman who once commanded the stage suddenly couldn’t sing, couldn’t even speak for long without pain.
The Years of Silence
Behind closed doors, she wrote songs she could no longer perform. “I felt like I’d lost my identity,” she said. Music had been her language — and now it was taken from her. But instead of giving up, Shania began retraining her voice, slowly, painfully, note by note.
The Return
Her 2017 album Now marked her first release in 15 years — a collection born from survival, strength, and rediscovery. The voice was lower, raspier, more fragile — but more human than ever. Songs like Life’s About to Get Good and Soldier were proof that vulnerability could become victory.
The Woman She Became
Today, at 60, Shania performs again, not as the flawless diva she once was, but as a warrior who survived illness, heartbreak, and silence. “I don’t want to sound perfect anymore,” she says. “I just want to sound like myself.”
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