Shania Twain got candid about her painful split with ex-husband Robert "Mutt" Lange — and how his alleged cheating allowed her to find the love of her life.
The "Still the One" singer, 57, and Lange, a well-known music producer, collaborated on several of her hit albums before she discovered that Lange was allegedly having an affair with her former friend and personal assistant, Marie-Anne Thiébaud.
Fifteen years on, Lange and Thiébaud are still together, Twain revealed on a recent episode of Dax Shepard's “Armchair Expert” podcast. Not that the singer still speaks to either of them. Twain said she only communicates with Lange about their son, Eja, who was born in 2001.
"Mutt and I parent well together — for people who don’t talk to each other,” Twain said. “We’ll just text. We both love our son so much, so we don’t play any games like that. We have the same priority, we share spaces for him. No nonsense there."
After learning about the alleged affair in 2008, Twain began speaking about it to Thiébaud's ex-husband, Frédéric Thiébaud.
In a sweet twist, the two ended up falling for each other, tying the knot in 2011.
Twain recalled that early on she felt "stupid" for not realizing she was allegedly being lied to by her ex and her former friend until she spoke to Thiébaud and learned he was also clueless about the alleged affair.
"Fred’s so smart. This is one of the smartest people I know. He didn’t know either. That helped me feel better," she revealed, adding, "Neither of us saw it coming."
Prior to the breakup of their marriages, Twain and Thiébaud didn't know each other very well.
“I did not get close to Fred at all, we didn’t have each other’s numbers. He was not really part of our daily lives because he’s working these crazy hours. A lot of travel, very high-profile company, just suit and tie and so he would be around at, like, weekend dinners and stuff like that. We would all eat together and that was it.”
Once the pair began talking, Twain was inspired by Thiébaud's ability to process the alleged betrayal that they both endured.
Twain told Shepard that she initially had a hard time controlling her anger and her grief. “I was uncontrollably fragile over it, which I had never felt before ever because I thought for once I was stable. I really believe that I’m safe, so that really devastated me I think more than any other instability I’ve ever felt," said the singer.
Meanwhile, Thiébaud was “thoughtful” about the alleged affair. “It was not cool with him, but he was smarter about it all,” explained Twain.
“I guess it was a beautiful surprise to then see how gracefully and graciously he was dealing with navigating the same pain,” she said.
As painful as the ordeal was for Twain, it had a happy ending.
“I think everyone gets what they deserve,” the singer told Shepard, adding, “I got what I deserve. I got the greatest man on the planet.”