Shania Twain opens up to Oprah Winfrey about love life

Shania Twain recently opened up about her troubled past love life and childhood on an episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that airs on Tuesday, May 3 and marks her first television interview in more than five years.

The 45-year-old country and pop star also surprised the studio audience with passes to the 2011 CMA Music Festival.

Twain has not released a new album in almost a decade and has not performed for an audience in almost five years. In 2008, Twain and Robert "Mutt" Lange, father of her son Eja, separated after 14 years of marriage. He was her first husband.

"There were days when I really just was like, 'You know, I just don't even really care if tomorrow comes,'" Twain told Winfrey of being told that Lange was having an affair. "I was just so miserable. So miserable. Never been so miserable in my whole life."

The singer would later learn that he was involved with her assistant and close friend, Marie-Anne Thiebaud. She and Lange have not confirmed they were involved at the time.

"I asked Marie-Anne, 'Don't you think that my husband is acting strange?'" Twain told Winfrey. "And she said, 'No, I don't see anything strange. I think he's fine,' All Marie-Anne did through the whole thing was comfort me, telling me that everything's fine, and I believed her, and I accepted it as being genuine."

Twain said she wrote to Marie-Anne Thiebaud, asking: "Why are you torturing me? Let it go, please. Find love somewhere else from someone else."

In January, Twain married the woman's ex-husband, Swiss business executive Frederic Thiebaud, in Puerto Rico after dating for at least one year.

"He was Marie-Anne's husband," Twain told Winfrey. "That's twisted, if you really think about it. But just so beautifully twisted."

On Winfrey's show, Twain also discussed her upcoming reality series, "Why Not? with Shania Twain," which is set to premiere on the OWN Network on Sunday, May 8, and her autobiography, "From This Moment On," which was recently released. Both deal with her personal struggles.

On the reality show "Why Not? with Shania Twain," the singer says she has lost her ability to sing. She visits her childhood home in Canada, where she grew up in poverty. She also enlists the help of vocal doctors and coaches, a grief counselor and fellow music artists such as Lionel Richie and Gladys Knight in a bid to "reclaim her voice."

The singer told Winfrey that after her marriage ended, a doctor told her that had dysphonia, a condition in which the muscles squeeze the voice box, making it difficult to swallow or sing. Twain attributes the problem to her fears.

"Stage fright, domestic violence in the home as a child, my parents dying, not knowing what's next - just all of these different stages of fear in my life," she told Winfrey. "I've just trapped my own voice, and now I've got to unwind all that."

Twain has dealt with tragedy most of her adult life. The singer, who was named Eilleen when she was born, grew up with two sisters and two half brothers and in 1987, her mother and stepfather were killed in a car accident. At age 22, Twain became her younger siblings' guardian.

"I was an 8-to-10-hour car ride away," Twain told Winfrey. "They explained to me on the phone that they were dead."

The singer went on to concentrate on her music career and achieved mainstream success with hits such as "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "Still The One," last released a studio album in 2002. The record, "Up!" has sold more than 11 million copies in the United States.

In addition to two-day passes to the 2011 CMA Music Festival, Twain also surprised the studio audience of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" with accommodations at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, a CMA statement said, adding that Twain also said she will host a private brunch for all of the audience members when they visit the city.

Twain last appeared at CMA Music Festival in 1996, when it was still known as Fan Fair. She will sign copies of her autobiography at this year's event.

"The audience reaction was incredible,"Jason Owen, Shania's manager at Sandbox Entertainment and member of CMA's volunteer Board of Directors, said in the CMA statement. "People were crying, screaming. You wouldn't believe how excited they were and how thrilled Shania was to make this experience possible for the fans."

Winfrey has given away expensive prizes to her audience members in the past - several months ago, she brought in-house viewers of one episode along with her to Australia for a week-long trip.