Shania Twain put herself in "the line of fire" in a bid to save her family from her abusive stepfather.
Shania Twain has recalled escaping her stepdad
The 57-year-old singer was still a teenager when she helped her mom and her siblings to escape her stepdad, with Shania fearing for her mom's life at the time.
During an appearance on 'The Louis Theroux Podcast', she said: "I guess around the age of 13, while at the age of 13, I declared that that was the worst year of my life. [I said] to myself, like literally out loud: 'This is the worst year of my life. And I am not going to get any worse. I'm going to make sure that this is the last horrible year of my life'."
Shania came up with a plan to help her mom and her siblings to escape the "abusive cycle".
The chart-topping singer needed her mum's help in order to reach Toronto, where they were put into a shelter for abuse victims.
Shania recalled: "I waited to my dad was at work. And I brought my mother a coffee and a cigarette in bed. I got all the kids in the car. And then when everyone was ready, I got her out of bed. And I said, 'Get dressed, we're leaving.' She was quite confused. But I was able to convince her.
"I said, 'Look, everybody's already in the car. Everything's in the car. All you got to do is get behind that wheel and drive. That's all you got to do.' And she did. And we drove to Toronto, which was a ten-hour drive. And we find something to do with battered wives.
"So I say, 'Mom, you're gonna have to talk, because they're gonna know I'm a kid. And they're not going to take me seriously.' So we went to the shelter that was like a general homeless shelter. And then we were placed into a battered woman's home."
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