Shania Twain said showing off her “new body” as she gets older has been “liberating.”
The 57-year-old got candid about how posing topless for the cover of her latest single, “Waking Up Dreaming,” helped heal her lifelong body image issues.
“This is me expressing my truth. I’m comfortable in my own skin, and this is the way I am sharing that confidence,” Twain told People on Wednesday, adding that anything is “fashionable” if it’s worn with “confidence.”
“I am a woman in my late 50s, and I don’t need to hide behind the clothes. I can’t even tell you how good it felt to do nude shooting. I was just so unashamed of my new body, you know, as a woman that is well into my menopause. I’m not even emotional about it; I just feel okay about it.”
In the cover art, Twain covered her bare chest with her arms as she posed in a cowboy hat and a pair of colorful pointy-toed boots.
While the image shocked some fans, the country-pop icon is no stranger to carving her own path in the music industry.
“From the very beginning — the very first video — I was ditching the bra,” the singer said, noting her decision to go bra-free in the 1993 music video for “What Made You Say That.”
“But, I was a lot firmer then, so as I grew older, I started feeling a different pressure of, ‘Well, your breasts are not as plump as they used to be. Your skin is not as tight as it used to be. Maybe you should start covering it up a little bit more.’”
Twain added that when she noticed her “courage” was “dulling,” she vowed not to “regress” to her insecure self.
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“I am embracing my body as it changes, as I should have from my childhood to my teens, as I should be from my taut, 20s and 30-year-old self, to my menopausal body. I’m not going to be shy about it. I want to be courageous about it, and I want to share that courage in the artwork that I am directing.”