When Shania Twain posed nude in a photoshoot for the first time, it was “a real leap of faith in my own courage.”
The global superstar opened up about finding comfort in her own skin in the latest episode of Making Space with Hoda Kotb. Twain and host Hoda Kotb reflected on the “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” icon’s decades-long career, her successes, struggles in her childhood and more. The episode debuted on Monday (January 30), as Twain gets ready to kick off her long-awaited Queen of Me era. It’s an album that Twain has previously shared celebrates a chapter of “feeling very comfortable in my own skin… Life is short and I want to be uplifted, colorful, unapologetic and empowered.”
“When I stand in front of the mirror — I don’t like to stand in front of the mirror…or at certain angles, or if I look at myself from head to toe in the mirror, I see my faults,” Twain told Kotb as she explained why she opted to move forward with a nude photoshoot for the first time. “I don’t like the lights on when I’m going to bed if I’m naked. I want the lights down, and I’m just tired of that lack of freedom.
“I wanna be more relaxed and comfortable in my own skin,” she continued. “It is what it is, and I can’t change it unless I go under the knife or something, right? I mean you don’t really know what you’re gonna get anyway! …I may never be happy. So, it’s my perception of things that has to change. It’s the way I see things that has to change instead of changing who I am and what I look like. So, when you’re naked, now you’re relying entirely on your own love of yourself and respect for yourself. …I don’t even know where I got the courage to do it [the nude photoshoot]. I think I just got fed up of judging myself.”
Twain emphatically replied, when asked by Kotb, “no,” she doesn’t ever intend on getting plastic surgery to change her physical appearance.
She continued, throughout the podcast, reflecting on challenges throughout her childhood, keeping her siblings together after losing her parents, nearly losing her voice after Lyme disease and surgery (it sounds different now, she said), her marriage and more. She also shared an empowering message about experiencing freedom outside of your comfort zone.
“I was doing something against my will, almost. Against my comfort zone,” Twain said of performing on stage earlier in her career. “So, this is why — with the naked thing, taking these photographs naked — I’m like, pushing myself through this. I’m uncomfortable with it, so I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it until I get comfortable with it.
“I was only hurting myself. You see? I was the only one missing out. …if you’re missing out on something because of fear and you’re letting fear get in your way, you are the only one you’re hurting.”
Queen of Me is set to release on Friday (February 3), and Twain’s international tour of the same name kicks off in April. Listen to one of the first songs from the album, “Waking Up Dreaming,” again here: